Rewriting the Program
by Guilty-As-Battery-Charged
Summary: Vanellope is on the internet, and Ralph is back at Litwak's. Something else besides distance was bound to come between them eventually, and it does, in the form of Ralph's new young friend. As a result of a tragedy caused by Vanellope's anger and jealousy, she is forced to reevaluate her life choices, and seek help from Dr. McAfee, the web's leading mental health care provider.
1. Chapter 1

**Plot Summary:** Vanellope is on the internet, and Ralph is back at Litwak's. Something else besides distance was bound to come between them eventually, and it does, in the form of Ralph's new young friend. After a tragedy caused by Vanellope's jealousy and resentment shatters her world, she is forced to reevaluate her life choices, and seek help from one of the internet's leading mental health specialists, the stern but compassionate Dr. McAfee.

This is probably my most ambitious fanfiction project yet. My goals in writing this story are to cover areas of the sequel that I (admittedly) found lacking, such as Ralph's needs as a person being seriously considered, Vanellope's character development, life at Litwak's arcade with Wi-Fi, and how the murkiness of the internet severely and negatively impacts the lives of the video game characters inhabiting it. Mental illness is especially going to be a big theme in this story. If you're uncomfortable with that, I suggest that you stop reading here.

Wish me luck. This fic's going to be a doozy. But I'm looking forward to the adventure that writing it is going to be.

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Wreck-It Ralph, or any of the video game/Disney characters who will be appearing later in this story.

* * *

 **Rewriting the Program:** **Chapter One**

 **A Death and a Birth**

* * *

Mr. Litwak sat solemnly in the lawyer's office, dressed all in black, feeling low but also relieved that his Nana's funeral had gone smoothly without a hitch. The weather had held up, though a few dark clouds had loomed threateningly over the proceedings. Nana was buried next to her husband, as she'd requested, in the Litwak family's plot of land in the city's cemetery (Litwak's own parents were buried there too). He had done his duty.

It had been a tragically small turnout, though. Many of her relatives had already passed on, as had many of her friends. There were only a modest handful of mourners, most of them acquaintances and staff from her retirement home. Mr. Litwak's younger brother Jeffrey hadn't seemed to think it was worth it to fly out for it.

"Jeff, this is our _Nana,"_ Mr. Litwak had reminded him over the phone a few days prior. He did his best to mask the hurt and disappointment in his voice. "She practically raised us when Mom was sick, remember?"

"I do remember. I'm just really swamped with work right now. I can't possibly get away. I'll send flowers—"

And he had. They lay on Nana's grave, a paltry tribute to a long, difficult life of hard work and sacrifice for her loved ones. Mr. Litwak's grandparents had come to America from Poland, knowing little English and having even less money to their name, but they had built a life together from scratch, opening a coffeehouse, working fourteen-hour days, bringing up three children and raising their eldest's two boys after he died in a bus accident and his widow fell ill with heart disease…

Mr. Litwak shook his head sadly. And Jeff was too "swamped with work" to come say goodbye to her. He sent an eyesore bouquet in his place instead. It was insulting. He'd expected better from his brother. Where had loyalty to family gone in this world?

The lawyer was shuffling papers on his desk. "Mr. Litwak, I am very sorry for your loss."

Mr. Litwak nodded and gave a small, grateful smile. "Thank you."

"Your Nana was a very good woman. She lived a full, decent life."

"She was. And she did."

"She and I devised her will a decade ago," the lawyer went on. "She never once requested to change it before her demise. I will read it to you now, with your permission…"

Mr. Litwak nodded again. "Please do."

The lawyer cleared his throat and began. "I, Julianna Serafina Litwak, do hereby declare myself of sound mind..."

"A bit of a stretch of truth, but alright," Mr. Litwak thought. In the last few years of her life, when he duly visited her every Sunday to take her to church and then out and about, his Nana asked to go to a Polish market that had been closed for nearly half a century. And she thought Ralph and Felix were the names of his roommates, not the names of the main characters from his arcade's oldest and most popular game. She kept asking how they were. He kept telling her they were doing just fine. They were always busy. That's why they couldn't come visit too, but they sent their good wishes.

"Being such, I leave to my beloved grandson Stanley Reynold Litwak all of my monetary assets, for him to spend as he pleases…"

"What about Jeff?" Mr. Litwak asked at once. "Jeffrey Markus Litwak. Her other grandson. He's still alive, in Ohio."

The lawyer peered closely at the will. "There's no mention of him. You are her sole heir."

"I see." Mr. Litwak's mustache twitched as he thought about how his brother would react to this news. Would he even care? Would he regret his filial neglect at all, when he discovered Nana had passed over him? "I know it's in poor taste to ask, but how much has she left? You see, I never interfered with her finances when she was alive. She never wanted help. She was a strong-willed woman to the end."

"It's quite a lot," the lawyer said, much to Litwak's surprise. His Nana had never presented herself as a woman of wealth. She'd worn her dresses until there were gaping holes in them and Mr. Litwak had to insist on her ordering something new. _"Quite_ a lot. Your grandmother made some very good investments when she was younger, and she bought some very valuable stocks. She was also very frugal, and you probably already know. If you'd like, I could write down the number for you."

"Please do." Mr. Litwak was no longer quite so surprised. His Nana _had_ been a ruthless penny-pincher, now that he thought about it. She was the kind of woman who would sit at the kitchen table and determinedly slice the bad bits off discounted fruit rather than buy fresh fruit at full price. She would also make everyone go to bed early to save on the electricity bill. He remembered how, as a child, his grandmother had made it plainly clear to him and his brother that if they wanted anything that wasn't a necessity, like a comic book, a trip to the cinema, an ice cream cone, or even a new tie to wear to their confirmations, they were going to have to earn the money for it themselves, through paper routes, dog walking, shoe shining, and helping out around the coffeeshop. They had to go out and find their first part-time jobs the day after they turned fourteen. By the time they were eighteen, they were expected to be ready to set up on their own.

And he had been. And he'd worked long and hard for everything he wanted. He'd saved and scraped to buy a failing arcade from its previous owners, and put his sweat and tears into making it successful. Even after nearly forty years, it was still doing well enough to stay open. He thanked his Nana for that. No one else could have hammered perseverance into him like she had.

Jeff had that perseverance too, but not the gratitude to go with it. He was resentful of their harsh upbringing, Mr. Litwak knew. He probably still remembered how the other kids used to tease them for the clothes Nana made for them from scratch to avoid getting fleeced by clothing shop owners. He'd been maddeningly jealous of the neighbourhood kids whose grandparents spoiled them, who took them out for ice cream, to the cinema, and to the zoo, who slipped them extra pocket money when their parents weren't looking. But shouldn't he have let go of all that by now? Couldn't he reach into his album of memories and see Nana for what she was, a devoted, hardworking woman, who only wanted her grandsons to grow up into strong, respectable men capable of standing on their own two feet?

The lawyer scribbled the grand total of Mr. Litwak's inherited fortune on a scrap of paper. "I have smelling salts if you need them," he joked dryly.

"That won't be necessary. I'm not a fainter." The lawyer folded the paper and pushed it forward. Mr. Litwak, after taking a long moment to prepare himself, opened it and read the number. His eyes widened instantly. He almost did faint.

* * *

That same day, Mr. Litwak wasn't the only one who received some astonishing news. Back in his beloved arcade, in a game called Fix-It Felix Jr., a massive bomb was about to be dropped.

"Vanellope, honey, we have something to tell you," The game's hero Fix-It Felix Jr. spoke into his game's antagonist Wreck-It Ralph's BuzzzPhone. He, Ralph, and his wife Sergeant Calhoun had Vanellope on speaker. "And we need you to stay calm about it and not freak out."

"Ralph finally got a girlfriend?" Vanellope teased. The bad guy frowned unappreciatively.

"No, kid, this isn't about me. Well, actually, it kind of is."

"What are you guys going on about? What's the news?" Vanellope asked.

Ralph took a deep breath and said it quickly. "Turbo is alive."

" _WHAAAAAT?!"_ Vanellope shrieked, so loudly that Ralph had to hold the phone away from them all. "No, no, no, he CAN'T be alive! He died in that volcano! His butt got fried! Sour Bill said he saw it! And some other people too! No one ever saw him when I was still there! How can he still be alive?!"

"He regenerated," Ralph explained, when Vanellope had calmed down enough for him to speak. "It turns out he programmed himself well enough into Sugar Rush to regenerate when the console was plugged back in. But don't worry, he's in Hero's Duty, in captivity."

"And he's going nowhere, at least not yet," Sergeant Calhoun added. "We'll let you know what we decide to do with him, but let me tell you, he's never stepping foot in a racing game again."

"Phew! Well, that's a relief!" Even though they could just hear her voice, they could tell Vanellope's mood had just flipped over like a pancake, as it often did. "He didn't mess up anything else in Sugar Rush, did he?"

"No, he was in hiding. Everything in Sugar Rush is fine," Ralph assured her. Well, that was the first half of the news over with. The three adults all looked at each other with the same unspoken question flashing on their faces. _Now who's going to tell her the next part?_

Felix eventually stepped up to the plate. "Vanellope, there's also…something else…"

"…What?" Vanellope asked nervously. Felix, glancing uncomfortably at the others, began to recount the story.

They had been in Sugar Rush, watching the random roster race. Well, not Ralph, but Felix, Calhoun, and some visiting marines…

Everything had been going swimmingly, as usual. Taffyta, who had recently been elected the new president among the game's inhabitants, had been doing pre-race announcements when the ground began to shake beneath them all. At first everyone thought it was an earthquake, or Diet Cola Mountain exploding again, but the mountain was calm, unlike the citizens, who instantly began to panic.

"It's coming from the mines!" someone shouted over all the yelling and screaming. They meant the Rock Candy Mines, which were an unfinished underground track the racers rarely used because it was too dark and dusty down there to drive.

When the upheaval passed, and all was still again, Taffyta immediately jumped into action. "We need to go assess the damage," she insisted to the others. "The roster race can wait."

When they got to the mines, they discovered that the rumbling they'd all felt had been a disastrous cave-in. They couldn't even get through the entrance and into the tunnel leading down to the underground track. It was completely blocked off.

"Turbo had been hiding out in the Rock Candy Mines for months, surviving on the candy he chipped out of the walls," Felix told Vanellope. "He chipped at the wrong spot and caused an avalanche of rock candy."

"I'm liking everything about this so far," Vanellope admitted.

Felix sighed, dreading the approaching climax of the story. "Well, you're not going to like what happened next…"

They heard Turbo start screaming behind the blockage, and he wasn't just screaming for help. He was screaming _in pain._ Wretched, nightmarish, ear-splitting screams of pain. They all guessed right away that he'd broken a bone, or that something heavy had fallen on him and he couldn't move. Or both.

"And you didn't just leave him there?"

" _Vanellope."_

"Sorry. Go on."

It had taken the collective effort of the Sergeant, Felix, Duncan, Wynchel, most of the racers, and the marines to dig through the wall of rock candy chunks. They worked as fast as they could, like an assembly line, passing rocks backwards to toss them out of the way. And Turbo just kept on screaming. He screamed and screamed until their ears were ringing, and all they could do was keep on passing back and throwing away rocks.

Then, all of a sudden, his screaming stopped, only to be replaced by another sound. Something that sounded like a frightened, squealing animal calling for its protector. A sound that none of them had ever heard before yet, somehow, recognized immediately.

"Is that a—?" Felix began to ask the others uncertainly. Everyone froze to listen. Oh, dear Konami, it was.

"Come on, you lazy dough-sacks, _dig!"_ Sergeant Calhoun shouted at them all, and they all tripled their speed. Felix had wished with all his heart that Ralph was there. He would have been able to smash through all those rocks in seconds. But he never visited Sugar Rush, not since Vanellope had decided to live on the internet. There was nothing for him in that game anymore, so he just stayed away.

When they, the rescue team, finally broke through the wall of red, blue, and green rock candy and rushed down into the mine with torches and flashlights, they found Turbo, laying on the ground among the rubble in a pool of blood, barely breathing, barely alive, but alive all the same.

But him still being so wasn't the most shocking part of the discovery, because laying across Turbo's chest, hurriedly wrapped in a soiled jacket, sticky, howling ravenously, and dangerously tiny, was a…

" _BABY?!"_ Vanellope cried. She sounded as baffled and disturbed as they all felt. "Are you serious?! You guys are joking, right?! You're pulling my leg, right?! Is it April Fool's Day already?!"

"Vanellope, it's May. We just had April," Ralph said. "We're not joking, though I really wish we were. Turbo had a baby."

"When Turbo regenerated, he came back as a Cy-Bug hybrid," Felix tried to explain. "Cy-Bugs can have babies on their own without any...assistance."

"Asexual reproduction. Don't sugar coat it," the Sergeant cut in. "The cave-in made Turbo go into premature labor."

"He didn't even realize he was…expecting," Felix added. "He thought he had a tumor, apparently. Some sort of abnormal swelling."

"Awwww, geez Louise. This can't get any weirder!" Vanellope exclaimed. "What about the baby? Is it…okay? Is it a hybrid too?"

"The baby's in an incubator and under the care of my medical unit in Hero's Duty," the Sergeant answered. "And yes, it's a hybrid. A surprisingly well-formed one, too. We'll see how it does."

"Why do you guys keep saying 'it?'" Ralph snapped suddenly. "He's a boy and he has a name! Turbo Junior!"

Both Felix and Calhoun stared at him, taken back by this sudden defensive outburst.

"What's with you, Wreck-It? You got adoption papers ready or something?" the Sergeant asked him.

"No, no I don't…" Ralph scratched his neck uncomfortably. "It's just, uh…well, I'm kind of the reason this kid exists, so I feel responsible…"

"Well, you don't need to feel responsible. We've got everything covered," the Sergeant said. "And Vanellope, if you can, put us in contact with your friend Yesss. She knows what's what, and we need to talk to her about what sort of high-security correctional facilities are available on the internet…"

In the Hero's Duty medical ward, Turbo, simultaneously a prisoner and a patient, quickly made himself a menace, demanding, at all hours of the day, that his baby be brought to him, and lashing out at the nurses and doctors and even the marines when they refused.

The baby had to stay in the incubator, they tried, fruitlessly, to explain to him. He was too small and too weak to be moved.

"Too small?! Too weak?! Whose baby are you talking about?! Not mine!" Turbo cried, wild-eyed and deranged. "I want him now! He's _mine!"_ But the medical ward staff wouldn't budge.

Nobody was surprised when Turbo, forever and always an egomaniac, insisted on naming the baby Turbo Junior, after himself. He harassed the Hero's Duty characters until they swore on their mothers' graves not to name him anything else. "It's my right to name him! I gave birth to him, in that filthy candy mine, all on my own! If you people change his name, I will hunt you all through _hell!"_

Everyone promised not to change the baby's name, mostly just to make Turbo shut up about it. The only matter on which Turbo was cooperative was the matter of his sterilization. He, to everyone's immense relief, consented to the procedure without a fight. He didn't want to go through _that_ again.

"Junior doesn't need siblings. He has me," Turbo told the doctor and nurses as they prepared him for the surgery. "He's going to be a great racer someday, you know. I'm going to teach him how to drive myself. The gamers will love him."

The doctor and nurses all looked at each other uneasily. They were under strict orders not to give Turbo any hint of what was planned for him.

"I'm sure your little boy will do great things someday," one of the nurses said tactfully.

"He will! He will!" Turbo exclaimed excitedly, both eyes twitching in a rather disturbing manner. "He can't be anything but great! He's mine!"

"Turbo, we need to put you under now. Are you ready?" the doctor asked him.

"Yes, yes, get it over with." Turbo's mind was racing as they strapped the anesthesia mask over his face. He kept murmuring to himself as the gas gently lured him into a state of senselessness. "Turbo and Turbo Junior. We'll be a team. The best…the best the world has ever seen…"

He wouldn't wake up in that medical unit, or even in the arcade. The dose they'd given him had been much stronger than necessary.

The Hero's Duty characters knew what they were doing was cruel but necessary. They had all seen the video that Turbo's former assistant Sour Bill had sent them at their request, the racing footage of "King Candy" trying to beat a nine-year-old with a car antenna and crash her into a traffic island. There was no disputing it. Turbo was not mentally sound, nor was he fit to raise a child. The baby's safety had to take priority over their consciousnesses.

The Surge Protector had cleared out the Game Central Station, as instructed. There was no one around to stop the mixed group of marines and medics as they wheeled the caged, comatose criminal to the Wi-Fi entrance. His sterilization was complete. He would have no more babies. He would have no contact with the one he had, either.

Turbo was going to prison, on the internet. Everyone had agreed unanimously on this. He couldn't be kept at Litwak's anymore. He was too much of a danger, to all their games. He was an experienced hacker. What world would he try to take over next if, by chance, he escaped justice again?

Ralph, Sergeant Calhoun, and Felix were all waiting at the entrance, to see Turbo off for themselves. They looked at the unconscious ex-racer and king with equal parts disgust and pity. For every spark of satisfaction they felt for their decision, there were two piercing stabs of guilt to follow it.

"We're not doing anything wrong here. He made his own choices. He has only himself to blame," Sergeant Calhoun said to her underlings, whose expressions were all glum and remorseful. She sounded like she was trying to reassure herself as well.

Felix turned to Ralph. "Did you call Vanellope?" he asked.

Ralph nodded. "I did. She's not going to leave Slaughter Race until she gets word that Turbo's safely locked up. Shank's not going to let her leave, either. I know that kid. She might try to sneak a peak at him, just out of curiosity."

"J-Junior…" They heard Turbo mumble drowsily in his cage. "Where's my…baby…"

"He's waking up," Private Thompson said to the others. "Come on, guys, we need to hustle."

"Be careful with him, and don't let him out of your sight," Sergeant Calhoun ordered as they pushed Turbo's cage through the entrance. As he had many times before, Turbo disappeared into the darkness, but this time, everyone knew _exactly_ where he was going, and who he would be when he re-emerged again: an inmate on a life sentence, in a jail cell far away from them all.

The rest of the arcade, unaffected by any doubts of morality, was overjoyed at the news that Turbo was now permanently exiled from Litwak's Arcade. "He's gone! He's really gone!" they cheered, hugging each other and dancing about. "We're finally free of him! Thank goodness for Wi-Fi!"

At last, the shadow of his decades-long campaign of invading their games and terrorizing them all was lifted, and they could sleep easily again.

And Turbo Junior, who soon reached a healthy size, was moved out of the incubator into a proper baby crib, where he slept the peaceful, unhindered sleep of an innocent soul.

* * *

 **End of Chapter One**

* * *

The scene is set. Now, on to chapter two! Please review!


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you all for the kind feedback for chapter one! I'm glad this fic has gotten a good reception so far. I was worried. Enjoy chapter two.

* * *

 **Rewriting the Program:** **Chapter Two  
Old Wounds and New Beginnings**

* * *

The original plan for Turbo Junior was to send him off to the internet as well, as soon as he was big and strong enough, to be put up for adoption. But things didn't quite work out that way. A lot of plans didn't factor in deprived, needy hearts. The space marines in Hero's Duty got attached, and together petitioned Sergeant Calhoun to let them keep the baby.

She, after some reasonable hesitation, eventually agreed, but only on the condition that raising Turbo Junior would not interfere with their military duties. They swore to their commander that it wouldn't. There were so many of them, they could care for him in shifts, and the gamers would never suspect a thing. They wouldn't notice one or two marines missing from gameplay.

"We couldn't let him go," Private Markowski told Ralph, who was finally allowed to visit and meet the baby he'd help create. "We have to fight those huge, ugly beasts all day, every day. But look at _him!"_

Ralph did. Turbo Junior had filled in well and had become, against all odds, a really, _really_ cute baby, with chubby, squishy cheeks and a puff of soot-black hair that reminded him of Vanellope's. Private Swift was swaddling him in a blue and yellow striped blanket that Private Markowski had knitted, and he gurgled happily at all the attention he was getting.

"So are you guys still going with Turbo Junior?" Ralph asked. "I heard Turbo made you swear not to change it, but, you know, he's not here anymore. What he doesn't know won't kill him."

Private Kohut shook his head. "No. We all swore on our mother's graves, and we all love our Mamas, so we gotta keep the name."

" _However,_ Turbo didn't make us swear off _nicknames,"_ Private Wyatt said, grinning. "We're all agreed on TJ. What do you think?"

"TJ?" Ralph echoed. A smile spread across his face. TJ. A cool kid's name. One that the little bugger could have for himself, no baggage attached. "I like it."

"We have a nursery for him all set up! We're all going to take turns taking care of him!" Private Markowski exclaimed, pleased as punch. He was _very much_ looking forward to having a break from the battlefield to tend to TJ, as were several of the others.

"Could I help?" Ralph asked hopefully. "I could help look after him too, if you guys are, um, cool with that."

The soldiers looked at each other, with worried and uncertain expressions. Ralph, realizing then how stupid his request had been, prepared himself for an apologetic but firm _no._

"Maybe when he's bigger," Private Kohut finally suggested. "Babies are very delicate, Ralph."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Ralph sighed. It was true. He didn't do so well with delicate things. He couldn't blame them for worrying about a clumsy brute like him accidentally bruising the poor kid while burping him or changing his diaper. "Do you guys mind if I hold him, at least?"

They didn't mind at all, as long as he was careful and watched TJ's head. The delighted bad guy took a seat on a bench, and Private Swift carefully nestled TJ into the crook of his elbow.

"Don't move," he instructed him. Ralph didn't move a muscle. He just stared down at the little munchkin's face. And the little munchkin stared right back at him with big, curious, pale yellow eyes as he sucked contemplatively on his pacifier.

"Who are _you,_ you big doofus?" those eyes seemed to ask. He didn't start crying, as Ralph had half-expected him to. He wasn't scared of him. Grownups were scared of Ralph all the time, but not this little guy.

If he had been asked, Ralph wouldn't have been able to describe the warm, glowing feeling that surged through his body at that moment and threatened to come out as helpless tears. What he _did_ know was that he hadn't felt this way since Vanellope had lived at Litwak's.

TJ yawned, and the pacifier fell out of his mouth. Luckily, it was on a ribbon clipped to the blanket, so it didn't hit the floor, and Ralph didn't have to bend down to retrieve it. He tried to put it back in TJ's mouth, but TJ, suddenly rebellious, refused to take it back, and began to get fussy.

"Shhhhhhhhhhhh. Come on, little buddy. You've been with me for only twenty seconds." Ralph began to rock him as gently as he could, but TJ only squirmed, whined, and squinted his eyes tiredly. So Ralph did the only thing he could think of doing. He did what his Mama used to do for him back when he was a restless little rascal who wouldn't go to sleep, and what he used to do for Vanellope when her nightmares kept her awake.

He started singing.

" _Won't you play the music so the cradle can rock, to a lullabyyyyyyyyyy, in ragtime…"_

TJ went quiet and stared up at him again. _"Sleeping hands are creeping to the end of the clock, play a lullabyyyyyyyyyyy in ragtime…"_

TJ liked it. He was listening. Ralph even thought he saw a little smile. Or maybe it was just gas. Oh well. He kept singing.

" _You can tell the sandman is on his way, by the way, that they play. As still, as the trill, of a thrush, in a twilight huuuuuuush…"_

He offered TJ his pacifier again. This time, TJ accepted it, and began to suck slowly and rhythmically. _"So you can hear the…rhythm of the ripples on the side of the boat, as you sail awaaaaaaaaaaay to dreamland…high above the moon you hear a silvery note, as the sandman taaaaaaaaakes your haaaaaaaaaaand…"_

TJ's eyelids were drooping now. Ralph had to swallow down a lump that had formed in his throat before he could finish the last part. _"So rock-a-bye my baby, don't you cry my baby, sleeping time is niiiiiiiiiigh. Won't you rooooooock meeeeeeee to a ragtime…lullabyyyyyyyy…."_

TJ fell asleep in Ralph's arm, and Ralph stayed with him like that for almost an hour, just gazing down at the funny little miracle, hardly believing that he was real. When TJ woke up, hungry and cranky about it, Ralph, with a heavy heart, had to surrender him back to Private Swift for his bottle.

The bad guy made his way back to his game with his thumbs jammed in his pockets and his head hanging low. He didn't even snark at the Surge Protector when stopped, as usual. He was just too depressed.

"What's wrong, brother?" Felix asked, when he saw his downtrodden friend slump down onto his brick pile and cover his face with his hands.

"I just fell in love," Ralph confessed grievously. Felix understood at once.

"With the baby?" Ralph nodded. Felix sighed and shook his head. He'd seen this coming from a mile away. With Vanellope gone, Ralph needed someone new to dote on, and providence had duly delivered that someone right onto their doorstep. It was almost like an answered prayer.

Ralph moaned into his fingers. "But I can't take care of him. He's too small."

"What do you mean?"

Ralph told Felix what the marines had said about him looking after TJ. Felix patted Ralph's knee consolingly. "Well, that's not so bad. You just have to wait for him to grow a bit."

"Have you seen him, Felix? He's beautiful. I can hardly believe he's Turbo's!"

"I have. Of course I have, and honestly, I can hardly believe it either. Tammy and I would have taken him in ourselves if we didn't already have our hands full with _our_ little ones." Felix smiled warmly. "You're going to be a great babysitter for him, Ralph. You just need to be patient."

Luck fell on Ralph's side, for once. As it turned out, he didn't have to wait very long at all for TJ to be old enough for him to play with. Turbo's child was, like him, part Cy-Bug, and Cy-Bugs grew up fast.

"TJ! Ralph's here!" Private Kohut called up the stairs. A joyous squeal followed, and little TJ, his Cy-Bug wings flapping excitedly, flew down straight into the bad guy's waiting arms.

"Bring him back for dinner in an hour and a half," Private Kohut instructed Ralph, who was laughing because, as usual, TJ was trying to crawl down into his overalls pocket and hide there, just to be silly.

There had been an aching hole in Ralph's heart ever since Vanellope had left him, but as he chased a giggling TJ around Hero's Duty and pretended not to see right away the little boy's very obvious hiding spots when they played Hide and Seek in the marines' residential building, the ache dulled, just a little, just enough for Ralph to wake up with a smile on his face on the days Vanellope wasn't a part of.

"Hey, TJ, guess which hand has a bug in it," Ralph asked the toddler, holding out both ginormous wrecking machines closed into fists.

TJ, after pondering a moment, reached out and tapped on the right one.

"Wrong! Both of them!" Ralph cried as he scooped a yelping TJ up in his hands. TJ shrieked with laughter as Ralph tossed him up and down into the air like a football, and Ralph himself looked and felt so happy that he thought he would burst.

But there was one major downside to TJ growing up so fast. He _kept_ growing. Ralph would have been the happiest man in the arcade if TJ had stayed small and playful and giggly for just a bit longer, but TJ wasn't a Sugar Rush racer, frozen at a young age. He aged, and Ralph couldn't get attached to anything his new friend did as a little kid, because an adolescent boy, too old for Hide and Seek and too big to fit in his pocket, soon took over.

He couldn't get attached to the adorable way little TJ called him "Wecka-Ra" instead of "Wreck-It Ralph" when he began to speak. Before long, big TJ was sharing his opinions, with perfect clarity.

"Felix's hammer isn't _really_ a hammer, though. It's more like a magic wand. Could he fix a table by himself with a normal hammer? I think you should steal his hammer and then break a table just to test him. I want to know. Do it for science."

Or, "What happens if the first-person shooter turns on when there's no gameplay? Like, imagine that it turned on by itself and the gamer just saw someone picking their nose or something. We'd get unplugged. Or we'd get even more gamers, probably."

He couldn't get attached to the way little TJ, pushing his oversized glasses up his nose, read through "Green Eggs and Ham" and "The Cat in the Hat" with him at bedtime, one word at a time, spelling out each one slowly and carefully with his finger. Soon, big TJ was no longer interested in Dr. Seuss, but was instead making his way through R.L. Stine's Goosebumps books. Then Harry Potter. Then Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie's mysteries. Then Edgar Allen Poe. Then all the newspapers and magazines that the marines ordered for themselves from the internet and from Paper Boy.

"So my horoscope says, 'A great opportunity will present itself to you soon. Embrace it fully and don't dwell on the possible negative outcomes. Your loved ones will support you.' Well, that one is better than last week's," TJ read aloud to Ralph as they sat together in the mess hall in Hero's Duty.

"What does mine say?" Ralph asked, sipping from a mug of coffee.

TJ pretended to peer closely at the small printed type. "It says, 'You'll get a girlfriend if you take a breath mint.'"

"Oh, ha ha," Ralph replied sarcastically. "You're hilarious."

"It actually does say that you'll find love soon," TJ said.

"I call bullroar. Pass the crossword."

TJ grinned sheepishly. Genetics had been generous with him, in some ways. His teeth were white, not Turbo's yellow. "It did it already."

"Awww, kid! I wanted to do it!"

"You'd just fill in, like, three words and pass it back to me to finish!"

Ralph chuckled. "Yeah, true."

He couldn't even get attached to the way little TJ wanted to eat all the pieces from every board game the marines owned. "No, no, NO! Spit it out! SPIT IT OUT!" Big TJ was soon creaming them all at Scrabble and Mah-jong and card games. Ralph loved the clever, snarky, good-natured boy TJ had grown into. But he couldn't help but mourn the carefree toddler whose time had been so short. He also couldn't help but fear that one day TJ would be too old for him altogether and, like Vanellope, would prefer the endless thrill of the big wide world to the company of one loving but unexciting old homebody.

He was right. The inevitable happened. TJ asked if he could leave Hero's Duty and visit other games. Ralph and marines held a meeting while they thought he was asleep.

"We can't keep him locked up here, guys. It's cruel. He hasn't done anything wrong. Why should we treat him like a prisoner?"

"A lot of people in this arcade have bone to pick with Turbo. What if they decide 'Oh, I can't get my hands on him, but here's the next best thing.' It's too dangerous."

"He should travel. He should see other games. He has the same rights as everyone else."

"Not everyone thinks so, though."

Ralph was thinking of Vanellope the whole time. Fifteen years, trapped in her game, behind an invisible wall. Freedom right within her grasp, tormenting her day in and day out. It had left its mark. It was what had made the limitless world of the internet so irresistibly appealing. It was the reason he'd lost her.

"I can take him with me to the web when I visit Vanellope," the bad guy offered. "No one knows who he is there. He can go wherever he wants."

"But you would still have to walk through Game Central Station," Private Kohut pointed out.

"Yeah, so what? Who's going to come near him while I'm there?" It was true. People scrambled to get out of Ralph's way when he travelled between games. For once, it might actually be a good thing.

They didn't realize that TJ, having flown up to the ledge next to the conference room's window and perched himself there, was listening to every word they were saying.

"He needs to learn how to get along with other people in this arcade—"

"But we can't trust the rest of the arcade to do the same. I mean, Ralph, you know what they're like! Even people who've been part of their game since day one aren't treated right!"

TJ already knew that he didn't really belong to Hero's Duty. He was part Cy-Bug, but the people in the game didn't see him as an enemy. He was too short to be a marine as well; he wasn't allowed to be anywhere near the battlefield during gameplay. He wasn't even one of the medics, working in the ward and in the lab. He'd started living in the game _after_ it was plugged in. He was adopted, and so he didn't have a predetermined role.

He wasn't part of the program.

"He looks too much like Turbo, even with the glasses and the hats."

"Are you saying we should disguise him?"

"I'm saying that we _can't_ disguise him."

He wasn't part of _any_ program. He was, at best, a…

"Mistake. That's what I've heard people call him. The nerve!"

"I've actually had someone from another game come up to me and ask why we kept him, as if that's their business. Fucking asshole."

Inside the conference room, Ralph was sighing. "Maybe it _would_ be best if we held off on letting him explore. We need to get him more prepared for what's out there."

Some of the others began to agree with their bad guy friend. TJ, blinking back tears, slipped off the ledge and gently flew down to the bottom of the tower, undetected. He went straight to one of the game's communal washrooms, to a mirror.

There, he took off his glasses. He took off his dark green beanie hat, which he'd knitted himself. He scrutinized his features closely, running his fingers up and down and across his forehead, his cheekbones, his nose and mouth. He frowned.

" _He looks too much like Turbo."_ But how could he _stop_ looking like Turbo? He didn't have a codebox to tamper with, so how could he change the gray pallor of his skin, or the yellow in his eyes? Would showing more of his dark, shaggy hair, instead of hiding it under hats or a helmet, make a difference? What if he never wore red or white again? Would people take note of the effort, or would they just peer even more closely, to find traces of that monster he himself had seen in that racing footage video?

" _I'm Turbo, the greatest racer ever! And I did not reprogram this world to let you and that halitosis riddled warthog take it away from me!"_

"All you ever did was take," TJ thought as he stared despairingly at his reflection. His eyes, slightly aglow and flickering like a pair of dying bulbs, were hurt and angry and sad. "And you've left me nothing but your ugly face and your ugly name."

Ralph and the marines didn't reach a conclusion at their meeting but decided to discuss it further, with TJ present, the next day. Ralph, sorry was his young friend's sake, was in low spirits as he made his way to the train that would bring him to Game Central Station. As he boarded, TJ flew in just as the doors were about to close.

"Ralph! Wait!"

"Kid! What are you doing?!" TJ was not supposed to be on the train. Ralph quickly pressed the red button to stall its departure, because he couldn't take TJ to Game Central Station, and he couldn't leave without resolving why the poor kid looked so distressed. Had one of his space cadet uncles already said something to him? "What's wrong?"

TJ swallowed anxiously and lowered his gaze as he took the seat across from Ralph. "I…I heard you and my uncles…talking about me…"

Ralph narrowed his eyes. "Were you eavesdropping?"

"Yes," TJ confessed. "I heard everything."

Ralph sighed. Just like Vanellope. Nothing got past that kid, and this one seemed to be following suit. "Kid, listen. We're just—"

"Am I a mistake?" TJ asked quickly, meeting Ralph's eyes, which widened at once.

"What?"

"Am I a mistake?" TJ repeated.

"No! No, you're not. You're…" Ralph sucked at Scrabble, and he sucked at crossword puzzles. But somehow, at that moment, he was able to come up with the right words. "…a surprise. A really happy surprise."

"But not everyone's happy," TJ said. "A lot of people hate my birth father."

"A lot of people think avocados on their own taste good too. Listen, kid, people are dumb. And dumb people think it's logical to hate a kid for what their parent did, or hate a bad guy for doing their job, or a glitch just for existing. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you."

"If there was nothing wrong with me, I would be allowed to leave," TJ insisted.

"TJ, you _will_ leave, just not now—"

"When?!" TJ cried suddenly, frustrated with the way everyone was trying so hard to dance around the issue. He was getting sick of it. He wanted clear answers. "When Litwak does a clean sweep and all the games who remember Turbo are gone?!"

"Kid—"

"Don't 'kid' me!" TJ cried. "I'm almost grownup, and I know what's up! If I was a 'normal' character, we wouldn't be sitting here on a stalled train! I could go to Game Central Station with you right now!"

Ralph was silent for a moment, a long one that felt like an eternity to him and this blameless preteen that fate and bad luck had done dirty, and then his expression changed from apologetic to determined. Without saying another word, he reached over and hit the red button again. The Hero's Duty train rumbled slightly, then started moving.

TJ flinched and gripped the armrests of his seat. "Hey, wait, what are you doing—"

"We're going to Game Central Station."

"But…"

"Do you want to see it or not?"

TJ stared out the window. They were going through the tunnel, and the lights strung across the walls flashed before his eyes. "But my uncles…"

"Don't have to know. I'll have you back before they notice you're gone. You're absolutely right, TJ. You're a normal character and you should get to go where I go. You ready?"

TJ hesitated, but then nodded. "I'm ready."

"Good. Stick close to me and you'll be fine. We won't go into any games, just the station. There will be plenty of time for the rest later," Ralph said as the train began to crawl to a stop. TJ was feeling and looking nervous, and Ralph reached out and put a comforting finger on his shoulder.

"This is your arcade too, kid. Let's go." The train door slid open, and Ralph went out. TJ, following behind him closely and, with eyes wide open, saw that they were heading towards something white and bright, something that wasn't the dismal, perpetually overcast Hero's Duty.

Suddenly, he was excited. _Really_ excited. His heart was beating faster than Hero's Duty's theme music, and an elated smile stretched across his face, the face he'd resented so much in the mirror not long ago. He felt drawn towards the light, pulled involuntarily towards it, like any Cy-Bug would, but unlike the enemies of his game, Ralph was there to make sure he didn't fly headfirst into harm.

With Ralph, his first and only real friend, by his side, TJ stepped into the light, into Game Central Station, into the arcade, into the start of happiness. This was his first real glimpse of the world.

* * *

 **End of Chapter Two**

* * *

Leave your reviews in the review box and your leftovers in the fridge (put your name on them or they're mine).


	3. Chapter 3

In which Vanellope and TJ are basically stepsiblings who can't stand each other. Also, back we go to Mr. Litwak and his brother. I might as well have titled this chapter "Sibling Rivalry."

* * *

 **Rewriting the Program:** **Chapter Three  
The Sun and the Moon**

* * *

Mr. Litwak was feeling melancholy, a far cry from what was expected from someone who had recently come into a fortune. In his eyes, he'd lost much more than he'd gained. His dear Nana was dead, and he and his brother were no longer on speaking terms.

He'd told Jeff about their Nana's will over the phone. He'd expected a fit of rage, and had prepared himself for it, but what he got instead was cold silence, which was even worse. He offered to split Nana's money equally with his brother, which to him seemed more than fair. They were both her grandchildren. Why should only one profit from her lifelong thriftiness and shrewd business sense?

Jeff's response? "No. Keep it. Keep all of it. You were always her favourite."

This took Mr. Litwak's breath away. Jeff had never said such a thing before. How long had he been holding it back? "Jeff, I was never—"

"Goodbye, Stan." Jeff hung up, and for the longest time Mr. Litwak just sat in his office chair, stunned and silent and full of shame. He still had the piece of paper on which the lawyer had written the amount he'd inherited. He threw it into the waste bin, and went to make himself a pot of coffee. His hands were trembling as he poured the first cup. It had just occurred to him that he was finally and officially without a family.

What was he going to do now?

The arcade owner spent the next few months carefully considering what to do with the money. Right away he made a series of anonymous donations to his and Nana's church, her retirement home, the local food bank, a homeless shelter, a women's shelter, and a children's aid society, to ease his conscience. When that was done, he was still an absurdly wealthy man, so he considered his options. He was nearly old enough to retire. Nana's money would keep him in comfort for the rest of his life. He could take up golf. He could go on a cruise. He could travel the world. He could do whatever he wanted.

But there lay the problem. He didn't want to do any of that. He didn't like golf, and he wasn't too fond of boats either. He'd also travelled a bit in his youth and seen everything he wanted to see, so that idea was nixed as well. Most of all, he simply did not wish to retire. Not yet. He still loved his arcade, into which he had poured his life and all the love and devotion most people reserved for raising their children. In a way, the arcade _was_ his child. He'd given it his name, as a father gave his to his offspring. He couldn't abandon it. It was all he had now.

The answer to his dilemma soon became clear to him. He would use the money, at least _some_ of the money, to improve the arcade. But how? Putting thoughts of his brother aside, Mr. Litwak took out a fresh notepad and pen. He began to jot down ideas for what parts of his business needed the most attention. He began to make plans.

The building needed a new paint job, that much was certain. It was peeling in some spots, and while it gave the arcade an authentic retro look, Mr. Litwak was certain some fresh color would do it even more good. He'd hire some college students for the task. They were always looking for commissions, and offered fairer prices than their older counterparts.

He got an estimate for how much it would cost to retile the roof. It turned out to be an easily affordable sum, now that he had the means, so that part of the remodeling project would go ahead as well. He also began looking into getting a new sign; he wanted something flashier and entirely digital so that he and his employees would no longer have to climb up ladders to change around the letters every time Litwak's hosted a birthday party. A better sign might attract more customers as well, if it was eye-catching enough. You couldn't beat good advertising.

All of these developments seemed to him perfectly reasonable ones. The most important thing was not going overboard. He had to adhere to the basic principles of financial management his Nana had taught him. Stick to a budget, keep track of every cent you spend, and don't overestimate what your income might be the following month. His arcade was still doing well, but the profits weren't spectacular. More and more kids were staying at home to play video games, on their consoles and on their computers. Getting Wi-Fi had helped improve business significantly. Kids came to the arcade to hang out and play games so they could tap into it. But he couldn't rely on just that carrying his business through another decade or so. He had to make some wise choices too, and keep his purse strings tight.

There was only one thing he was willing to splurge on, just a little. New games. Nothing got the kids more excited than seeing a new game in the arcade's lineup, and nothing warmed Mr. Litwak's heart more than to see them so excited. Most certainly he would have to purchase some fun new consoles. It was an investment, really. A good game raked in a small fortune in quarters every week. His Nana would have understood that.

There was one game in particular Mr. Litwak had been eyeing for a while now. A handful of regular customers had asked for it, and he'd been tracking it on several websites, waiting for it to go on sale. It hadn't yet, but now nothing was stopping him from buying it at full price. It wouldn't even make a dent in his savings if he just went ahead and ordered it.

It was called Xtreme Paintball, and it was a first-person shooter game with wacky battlefields and challenging target practice levels. Mr. Litwak couldn't help but feel a rather pleasant glow of gratification when he was finally able to click "Add to Cart" and arrange for a fast delivery. It would fit right in next to the basketball hoops. The kids were going to love it.

"Can we go?!" A thrilled TJ asked Ralph shortly after it was plugged in. Ralph had never played paintball before, but the kid's eyes were as wide as disks, and trying new things never hurt anyone. They'd had some bad luck in some other games they'd visited, but this new one offered fresh ground for them to tread on.

"Sure! Why not?" TJ, giddy with excitement, zoomed right in without another word, and Ralph raced after him, half-elated and half-anxious that someone had already told the characters the Turbo story and warned them that his biological son was developing a taste for after-work game-jumping with his bad guy friend.

Luckily for them, nobody had, and the characters of Xtreme Paintball were friendly and welcoming to their visitors. Of course Ralph and TJ could play if they wanted to. They just needed the right protective gear, and a few lessons before they could be let loose on one of the many themed battlegrounds in the game's Battle Mode. There was Target Mode too, if they just wanted to shoot at some bullseyes for the fun of it.

"In Target Mode, there's the Easy Round, the Intermediate Round, the Difficult Round, and the Lightning Round," one of the paintball players explained as he showed Ralph and TJ around the gameplay areas. "We recommend starting with Easy and _slowly_ working your way up. Lightning Round's a trip, let me tell ya."

Ralph sent a silent, immensely grateful thank you out to Mr. Litwak for buying Xtreme Paintball as he and TJ were being fitted for their goggles, helmets, vests, and gloves (for TJ, Ralph's ham hands would have to go without). If Vanellope had been there too, gearing up with them, it would have been a perfect moment, but Ralph wasn't complaining. When he and TJ saw Vanellope on Sunday, when they made their weekly day trip to the web, they would tell her all about it. That would have to be enough.

* * *

Vanellope could sense the change in Ralph from afar, and especially in-person. She was still his best friend, but she knew she was no longer the centre of his world, the sun around which he orbited. The pattern of their universe had shifted dramatically. Once, there had been just her and him. Now, there was her and him _and_ Turbo Junior, who could only be described as the moon to her sun, because she and him couldn't have been more different.

First of all, he didn't race. He could drive—the marines had taught him how—but absent was that need for speed Turbo had once anticipated he'd passed down to his son. TJ and Ralph had taken up paintball as their hobby. _Paintball._ What kind of a game was _that?_ You shot little gooey balls of paint at people. People shot little gooey balls of paint right back at you. If you got hit too many times, and looked like an art gallery reject, game over. Yawn. It sounded more boring than the most tedious racetracks in Sugar Rush. Vanellope was surprised that the characters in Xtreme Paintball hadn't died of boredom yet. Or maybe they had, and then regenerated afterward.

Second of all, he was quiet. He watched everything with those yellow eyes, like a bug on the wall, never commenting on anything unless asked first, unlike Vanellope, who made her thoughts on everything known at every opportunity. She could never tell what was going on inside his head, and that made her nervous. This was Turbo's son, after all. Behind those ominous orbs—into which Vanellope had once fearfully peered before—possibly, _quite_ possibly, lurked a devious, corrupted mind, one that had not yet surfaced because its owner was bidding his time.

Thirdly, he was growing fast. He was very nearly a teenager, while Vanellope was nearing her twenty-second year as a nine-year-old. Ralph didn't treat him like a child. She heard them talk very seriously about the future of Litwak's arcade, in a way that she and Ralph had never talked. TJ had all sorts of ideas for ways Mr. Litwak could improve business and draw in more players, all of which Ralph took seriously, while Vanellope thought they were lame. Like, come on, seriously, who would want a giant Connect-Four, or virtual knitting lessons? And what the heck was an "escape room," anyway?

"I read about it in one of Uncle Swift's magazines. It's a huge thing in the human world right now," TJ explained. "What happens is that a group of four or five people get locked in a room with a theme, like a mad scientist's laboratory or a medieval dungeon, and they have to find clues and solve puzzles to get out within the time limit."

Vanellope, who had once been literally locked up in a dungeon with a "theme," failed to find that idea appealing at all. Ralph, on the other hand, thought it was neat. "So, basically, the players themselves finally have to do what we've been doing all along."

"Exactly," TJ said. "But I imagine that 'we' doesn't include you, because you would just punch your way out of the room."

"Obviously," Ralph replied, holding up his fists as confirmation. TJ laughed. Vanellope rolled her eyes. _Oh, ha ha, you're so clever, Dork Glasses._

But there was one thing about the bespectacled hybrid that, to the young racer, was more annoying that everything else combined. TJ was always, _always_ hungry. Being part Cy-Bug, he had a boundless appetite, and an unusually fast metabolism, according to the doctors from Hero's Duty. He brought a bag of sandwiches with him whenever he came to the internet with Ralph, but as soon as he (and Ralph) had worked through those, they always had to stop to get TJ something else to eat.

The worst was the time they just _had_ to get off the trolley taking them between games and stop at a produce stand, where TJ bought a bunch of bananas and a box of ripe tomatoes. Vanellope nearly gagged when TJ bit right into a tomato like it was an apple.

"Lots of people eat tomatoes like this," TJ said in his defense when he noticed Vanellope's grossed-out expression.

"Lots of weird people," she retorted.

"Hey. None of that," Ralph warned as he helped himself to one of TJ's bananas. "You put chocolate sauce on a piece of carrot cake once."

"It needed it," Vanellope insisted. "It was dry."

"Want a banana?" TJ offered, holding out the bunch to her.

"No, thank you, I don't want a banana," Vanellope answered with strained politeness and barely concealed miff. _I want you to get lost and leave me and Ralph the fudge alone._

No such luck. Ralph brought him the next time he visited. And the next time. _And_ the next time. Vanellope's patience was hanging by a very thin thread one Sunday when, after a whole afternoon of having to listen to Ralph and TJ blabber on about paintball and the attractive, intriguing team of college girls currently repainting Litwak's and whether The Police's songs were better than Rush's, TJ asked for them to stop at a website called CandyWarehouse dot com so that he could buy some nuts and sweets.

"Why can't you get that stuff from Sugar Rush?!" Vanellope demanded.

"I don't go to Sugar Rush," TJ answered simply. "It's awkward enough when I see them all in Fix-It Felix Jr. It's best if I just stay away. I won't be long."

Ralph couldn't fit through the door, so he waited outside. Vanellope waited with him, arms crossed irritably across her chest. They were losing perfectly good hangout time now, all because of TJ's gluttony. It was ridiculous.

"Who spat in _your_ Diet Coke?" Ralph asked when he saw her scowling.

"No one."

"Did you want any candy or anything?" he asked.

"No."

"Hey, at least TJ's not eating furniture or anything, right?" he tried to joke, but Vanellope didn't laugh. She didn't even smile. Ralph, seeing that she was not in the mood for their usual lighthearted banter, sighed defeatedly, and they waited in silence until TJ returned to them with a full sack of goodies.

"Here," TJ said, tossing Ralph a bag of his one favourite snacks, walnuts, which the bad guy could crack open with ease between his fingers. He also pulled out a pack of breath mints. "I also grabbed these, you know, for the heck of it. They were on sale—"

"Hint taken. Thanks," Ralph said, grinning as he accepted the box. TJ was smirking too as he rummaged through his bag of loot.

"You like Rolos, right?" TJ asked Vanellope as he produced a package of them. She _did_ like them, a lot, but she wasn't the least bit pleased when TJ passed them over.

"Aren't you going to say thank you?" Ralph reminded her.

"Thank you," Vanellope mumbled. Great. Now he'd given her food and she couldn't stay reasonably ticked off at him. That had been one of King Candy's favourite tactics too. Doling out treats to keep his people placated. _Have some candy!_

"We gotta be heading back, soon. TJ's got homework and chores," Ralph announced. Vanellope's heart sank. There were still so many hours in the day left, hours that she and Ralph could have enjoyed together if the marines hadn't imposed a curfew on their adopted son. It wasn't fair.

"Mostly chores. I've done my homework already," TJ added as he tore open one of his bags of nuts. "I'm on kitchen duty tonight."

"You're always on kitchen duty," Vanellope thought resentfully as she watched TJ toss back a handful of peanuts. Where did he put it all? He _was_ a peanut!

"You should come to Litwak's to visit us soon," Ralph suggested as the trio made their way to the web warp pad. "You've got to try Xtreme Paintball. It's a blast. Best game Litwak's gotten in years, to be honest."

"Yeah. We can all be on the same team," TJ added, as Vanellope was blissfully fantasizing about shooting him in the gut with a paintball. Repeatedly. _Let's see if you're hungry after that._

"Whatever," was all Vanellope said on the subject. She actually hadn't been back to Litwak's since she'd left, mostly because she would inevitably be confronted by the people of Sugar Rush and be made to repeat the reasons for leaving them she'd already offered over the phone. She knew Taffyta was in charge now, and while she accepted that her former bully got elected fair and square, she also wasn't sure she could face seeing Taffyta gloating in her role, living in her castle, and dominating her roster. She was already watching Ralph be slowly drawn away from her by Turbo Junior, a nerdy little weirdo with whom she was a hundred and ten percent certain she would never, _ever_ be friends with herself, no matter how hard Ralph tried to forge it. That was more than enough.

* * *

"Ready, kid?"

"I was _born_ ready!"

Ralph and TJ both knelt into position behind the barriers, paintballs guns aimed straight ahead. This was their first time doing the expert-level Lightning Round in Xtreme Paintball's Target Mode. So far, none of the gamers at Litwak's had been able to reach the round's goal of at least 200 points, which would give them a whopping five hundred tickets. Some came close, though. Ralph figured he would be lucky to get half of that. TJ, however, had been taught to shoot by his marine uncles, and was pretty darn good at it, so his chances were a smidge higher. Ralph imagined him making him to 160, or even 170.

"Which color are my targets again?" Ralph whispered to TJ.

"Red. Mine are yellow," TJ whispered back.

"Right. Gotcha."

" _Shooters, are you ready?!"_ exclaimed the animated announcer's voice from somewhere above their heads.

Ralph and TJ both raised up a thumb each. "Ready!"

" _THREE…"_

"It's kind of a bummer Vanellope hasn't played this game yet," Ralph thought as he locked his gaze on forward in anticipation. Beside him, TJ tightened his grip on his gun and narrowed his eyes determinedly.

" _TWO…"_

"She didn't really seem that interested when we told her about it," Ralph recalled. He shrugged it off. Oh well. TJ wasn't all that interested in racing either, despite his background. Everybody had their tastes. He was sure that Vanellope and TJ would find some common interests between them eventually. Maybe during the next visit they could try bowling, or something else…

" _ONE…_ _ **FIRE!"**_

The clock began clicking backwards from one minute. Ralph couldn't see where they came from, but bullseye targets fell from the ceiling, popped out of the ground, flew across the screen, and bounced around the room like a desktop screensaver on adrenaline.

The native characters of Xtreme Paintball stood by watching Ralph and TJ go at it. One of the main characters, a team captain called Champ, regarded TJ with interest and approval.

"Fists of Fury ain't bad, but the kid's a damn good shot," he remarked. The others nodded and agreed. The young hybrid handled his paintball gun like a sniper on a mission, with complete focus and control, hitting target after target in staggering procession. He hit the automatic reload button at exactly the right moments too. Anyone could tell that he'd been raised by soldiers.

Ten seconds left. Ralph and TJ furiously kept shooting away until the announcer called _**"TIME!"**_ Their scores appeared in flashing red letters on the board.

 **Wreck-It Ralph:** 135.

 **TJ:** 200.

"Kid! Holy—you did it!" Ralph cried.

" _WIN!"_ TJ shouted, pumping his fist in the air. He and Ralph high-fived, and the Xtreme Paintball characters came over to congratulate him.

"Nice job, sweetie. That was some impressive shooting," one of them, a female beneath her helmet, complimented TJ. "If all the gamers could hit targets like that, we'd be out of business within a week."

TJ thanked her, and Ralph regarded the stock-still yellow and red targets and the wall behind them, now splattered with dripping blotches of paint. Too many of his red targets were as clean as a dinner plate fresh out of the dishwasher. Almost all of TJ's were no longer the original color. "He outshot my sorry behind. I've got some work to do."

"So do I get five hundred tickets?" TJ asked.

"If you can find your way outside the console, yes," Champ joked. Everyone had a good chuckle over that. The gamers got to collect. They didn't. Oh well. "I'll tell you what, buckaroo. How about we play a round of Battle Mode, and you pick the battleground. You can be team captain too. I relinquish my title to you."

"Really?!" TJ beamed. He and Ralph had played Battle Mode before, many times in fact, but neither of them had ever been team captain. To him, that was worth way more than five hundred tickets. "Sweet!"

TJ's success as team captain, as well as his high score in Target Mode, were the rousing topics of conversation at dinner in Hero's Duty that evening, where he and Ralph reenacted the epic battle for his uncles using carrot chunks, bits of white bread, forks, spoons, and saltshakers as their props. Sergeant Calhoun walked in during this exultant demonstration, and reported later to her husband that she hadn't seen Wreck-It so high-spirited since Sugar Plum had been around.

"He's happy. That's what matters," was all Felix had to say on the subject. He made similar short, frank statements when his Sugar Rush children complained about Ralph bringing TJ to Fix-It Felix Jr. to do paintball target practice on bricks and soda cans an acceptable distance away from the main building.

"TJ's not bothering any of you, so don't any of you don't bother him," Felix told them sternly. Little did he know that there was one Sugar Rush child who was more bothered by TJ than all the others combined, and she was hoping, with both fingers and toes crossed, that he would come down with the flu or food poisoning or something else that would stop him from visiting the internet with Ralph on Sunday.

* * *

Vanellope had the worst luck in the world. Not only did Ralph bring TJ with him on Sunday _again_ but Shank—going against Vanellope's explicit wishes—invited them both to Slaughter Race so that TJ could get a full tour.

The young racer felt betrayed. The older racer felt otherwise. She tolerated Vanellope's bitter rants about Ralph's new friend but, like Ralph, believed there was no point whatsoever to their disliking each other, and that it would be beneficial to them both if they learned to get along, enjoy their playdates more, and try to be like cousins, or even like stepsiblings. So Ralph and TJ came to Slaughter Race. To Vanellope, having Turbo's son be led around her new, beloved, untainted home world felt almost like an invasion. And she couldn't say a thing about it without looking like a huge jerk.

"You're not the only child in Ralph's life anymore. You have to accept that," Shank told her insistently. Vanellope didn't want to hear those words, let alone accept them. And she didn't want TJ in her game either. But she wasn't the leader in Slaughter Race as she'd been in Sugar Rush. Shank was the leader and could conduct as many tours as she pleased, while Vanellope could only choose whether or not she wanted to tag along.

She ended up joining in, but only to be close to Ralph. In her eyes, TJ was the tag-a-long, not her. He followed Ralph to the internet to see _her._ She was the cool, fun, interesting kid, and he was just a charity case, indulged by the kind-hearted wrecker because he was Turbo's unfortunate Frankenstein-esque begat and had no one else to hang out with him.

At least that was what she kept telling herself.

TJ's respectfulness and attentiveness throughout the tour was unreproachable, and he asked Shank intelligent, pointed questions about how the game worked and what sort of players frequented it. Inwardly, though, he didn't see the appeal of Slaughter Race at all, and he especially didn't understand how, in Vanellope's case, it was worth giving up an entire kingdom for. It was dirty, everything exploded spontaneously, the unwashed, chain-smoking characters stank like skunks, and all the stray animals running around probably had fleas and diseases. One of the dogs, having caught a whiff of TJ's sandwich stash, even tried to attack him and rip open his backpack. Ralph managed to scare it off, but TJ's negative opinion of the popular racing game was rock solid from that point on.

Vanellope caught TJ's quick grimace of utter distaste when she showed him her room in Shank's house (giving him a house tour on her own had been Shank's idea, not hers; she would much rather have shown him the way out of the game). She thought he was just being a snob, but she didn't know that TJ was thinking about how he would be punished with extra chores and withheld allowance if his room was ever a fraction as messy as Vanellope's was.

The Hero's Duty marines had installed militaristic habits of cleanliness and order in their young charge. TJ's bedroom had to be _spotless_ , not a speck of dust or grime. The bed had to be made tightly enough to bounce a quarter off of it. His clothes had to be hung up neatly in the closet, not flung about all over the place, like Vanellope's entire wardrobe seemed to be. No eating in his room either. Meals were taken in the mess hall and no where else. TJ broke this rule often but was careful to remove any trace of his snacking before the daily inspection. If they found so much as a tiny piece of corn chip wedged between the floor boards, he was in trouble. In Vanellope's room, candy wrappers decorated almost every surface, and he could have sworn he saw a cockroach run by.

"Vanellope gets away with everything," TJ thought, concealing his disgust behind a disciplined mask of good manners. She got away with being a slob. She got away with abandoning her leadership role in Sugar Rush just because she got bored with her game. She got away with abandoning Ralph, without whom she would still be a glitch, picking her nose in her volcanic hideout and waiting for someone to give her a kart. Had she just forgotten that, when she blew him off for this grimy wasteland? TJ could hardly believe she could sleep at night, in this disgusting, infested room, with her sullied conscience. Did she have any shame at all?

"He's a snot, just like his Dad," Vanellope thought as she watched TJ's eyes survey the room, disapprovingly taking in every rumpled, discarded clothing article and every food crumb she hadn't gotten around to sweeping up yet. So what if her room wasn't spick-and-span? _She_ lived here, not him, and she could keep it as she liked.

Neat freaks in general got on her nerves, and for a good reason. King Candy's obsession with tidiness and perfection had defiled every aspect of Sugar Rush's daily life. She remembered it all clearly. From her usual hiding spots she'd watched him admonish the racers to tears over a torn jacket, a stained shirt, some muddy boots, or a cracked helmet. _"Go home this instant and_ _ **change!**_ _Sugar Rush has an image to uphold! Do you want the players to think we're a pigsty?!"_ Vanellope had hated him for it, just as much as she hated him for everything else. Now his stupid, four-eyed dweeb of a son stood before her, being just as snooty and judgemental. Vanellope would have told him to fudge off it wasn't for Ralph. There were a lot of things she would have said to TJ if it wasn't for Ralph.

"He seems like a very nice boy," Shank told Ralph as they stood chatting by her car outside the house, waiting for TJ and Vanellope to be finished with what Ralph hoped was friendly bonding.

"Yeah, the marines did a good job." He was too humble to play up his part in raising TJ. "He's defied expectations, that's for sure. Nurture, 1. Nature, 0."

"Have you taken him to visit his birth father in jail?" Shank asked curiously.

"No. I've offered, but he really doesn't want to, so I'm not pushing it." TJ had no interest in meeting Turbo, and Ralph certainly had no interest in spending his Sunday off hanging around a prison, so they let the matter slide. TJ didn't need another older male figure anyway. He had enough of those already, back in Hero's Duty, and an extra in Fix-It Felix Jr. Turbo's presence in his life would just confuse and spoil things.

"My father was a prisoner for a long time," Shank told him. "I remember once when I was little, I told the guards that I stole a bicycle, so that they would lock me up too. I wanted to stay with him in jail. I missed him that much. They just laughed at me."

Ralph frowned sadly. "I'm really sorry to hear that."

Shank sighed and gave a little "Well, what can you do?" shrug. "I suppose with TJ it's not the same," she said.

"No, it's not. TJ doesn't love Turbo." In fact, TJ hated Turbo, as any kid would hate a parent who left them stamped with their own damning notoriety, like a conspicuous birth defect they couldn't cover up. Ralph couldn't blame him.

"He loves you," Shank said simply. "That is why he doesn't want to visit Turbo. He has a father. That hole in his heart is filled."

Ralph reddened slightly and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I wouldn't say _father._ I'm more like an uncle, really..." A cool, fun uncle, he hoped.

"Father, uncle, the name for it doesn't matter." Shank smiled warmly. "You're his family."

Back in the house, Vanellope filled a bowl of food for Shank's boxer dog Bruce, who growled at TJ, as he sensed Vanellope's disdain for the unwelcome visitor. "Has he had shots?" TJ asked warily.

"I don't know. Have you?" Vanellope retorted fast, without thinking first. She instantly regretted her words. _Aw, shoot. Now I'm gonna get an earful from Ralph for being rude._

TJ blinked, and for a moment Vanellope felt the same swell of victory usually preserved for winning a race. But then TJ fired back, giving as good as he got. "You can't vaccinate a semi-virus, but you can teach a mangy mutt to behave. The ones on four legs, I mean. Not the ones on two."

 _Ouch._

The insult was clear and cut deep, as TJ saw an intense look of hurt flash across Vanellope's face. He felt ashamed of himself at once. She'd lit the beacon and he'd flown right into it like the weak-willed Cy-Bug he was. He was supposed to be better than that. The marines and Ralph had taught him better than that. "Sorry. I was joking," he backtracked, but the damage was done.

Ralph was disappointed when TJ and Vanellope came out of the house no more chummy than when they'd entered it. In fact, things seemed even more tense between them, and Vanellope wouldn't look TJ in the face. _Oh, Mod, they said something to each other._ Ralph inwardly sighed. _How am I gonna make friends out of these two? What's it gonna take?_

"Hey, I've got an idea," Ralph began as the two kids stood before him, so far apart that he could have been slotted between them. In a way, he already was, and he knew it. "Why don't we go catch a movie at Netflix? There's probably a ton of new movies out. You guys can pick."

"You said earlier we were going to iTunes," TJ reminded him. "We were going to work on the playlist, remember?"

Vanellope turned to look at him. _"Playlist?"_

"Yeah. The paintball playlist," TJ said. "Songs that get you pumped for battle. Classic rock, mostly, with a few good pop songs thrown in. Ralph and I made a list back at home."

"Oh, yeah, right, I forgot about that," Ralph said, scratching behind his ear. Darn his faulty memory. He could remember something he'd had for breakfast a year earlier, yet he couldn't remember a promise he'd made that morning in Game Central Station. Either some mediocre programmer was behind it, or he was just getting old.

Vanellope was crestfallen. She and Ralph had never made a playlist together. The idea had never occurred to them. "Well," she replied crossly. "Maybe I'll come along and make my own playlist."

"That sounds like a good idea," Shank remarked. "Make something we can play while doing maintenance on the cars."

TJ wondered if Vanellope knew that Ralph still had her old car, the Sugar Rush kart they'd made together, sitting unused next to his shack. He'd seen Ralph stare at it with a pained look in his eyes. He'd asked once why Ralph kept it. "Oh, just in case…" Just in case Vanellope ever decided to return home and needed something to drive. TJ doubted it. She seemed pretty darn in love with her apocalyptic dystopia and her shiny new car.

"She'll regret it someday. I know she will," TJ thought to himself as he, Ralph, and the girl he very secretly detested left Slaughter Race. "And she'll get zero sympathy from my corner when it all comes crashing down on her."

At iTunes, all the booths had only had two headsets each, so Vanellope found herself the odd one out as Ralph and TJ ducked inside one and slid the door shut behind them. She had to share with a NetUser as she randomly selected some songs she thought Shank would like. But her heart wasn't in it. Next to her, she could hear Ralph and TJ laughing and having fun as they browsed through the infinite selection of music.

"Okay, DJ TJ, your turn to pick!"

"Hmmmmmm. Oh! How many Scrabble points is _AC/DC?"_

"Aw, yes! That's my jam!" When Vanellope, abandoning her playlist in progress, stepped out of the booth to peek into theirs, she saw Ralph doing air guitar and TJ pretending to play the drums with two pencils. They both had headphones on, into which was blaring one of their rock song choices, so neither of them could hear her when she called out their names. Sighing, she shut the door and went back to her business, only to find that another NetUser had already taken her place and was downloading music as well. She felt so dismayed that she was tempted just to leave the website altogether and call Ralph later to tell him she'd bailed early because she had a headache. But she wanted to talk to him, so she stayed, and waited for him and TJ to finish.

She finally got her opportunity to speak to Ralph alone while TJ went off to the bathroom. "Ralph, could you…do me a favour?"

"Yeah, sure kid. What's up?"

"Could you…?" Vanellope felt like a bonehead even before letting the question out. But let it out she did. "Could you leave TJ at home next week? Like, can you just come visit me on your own? Please?"

Vanellope would have been ecstatic if Ralph had just said "Yeah, of course. Why didn't you just ask before? It'll be just you and me, the way it used to be!"

But instead, he asked, with a genuinely perplexed look on his face, "Why?"

Vanellope frowned and crossed her arms. "Why do you _think?!"_

Ralph tiredly rubbed at his eyes and nose. "Aw, come on, Vanellope, don't be like this. I'm begging you."

"Doesn't he have friends in the arcade he can hang out with?" Vanellope asked. "Or can't he spend some quality family time with the marines or something? Does he have to come every weekend?"

"What do you have against him?!" Ralph demanded incredulously. "He's a good kid! He bought you candy out of his own pocket money!"

 _Of course_ Ralph would bring that up. Vanellope sighed in exasperation. "I know you want us to be friends—"

"I need you two to be friends," Ralph corrected her. "Or, at the very least, I need you two to try and get along, because I'm not leaving him behind when I come here. No siree."

"Aw, Ralph, come on!" Vanellope wailed. "Pleeeeeeeese?"

"No. Don't look at me like that. The answer's no. When I come to the internet, TJ comes with me, take it or leave it. He needs to leave Litwak's every once in awhile. Do you know why?" Ralph asked. He didn't wait for Vanellope to answer. He just told her. "It's because people stare at him, wherever he goes. They called him a freak of nature behind his back. They don't see a nice, smart, funny kid, like I do. They see 'Turbo's unnatural spawn' or something just as bad. They kicked us out of Dig-Dug when we visited. TJ wasn't even doing anything wrong, he was just shining a flashlight down the holes to see what was there. And when we went to Frogger, someone tried to push him into traffic! The joke was on them, TJ flew himself back to safety, but I taught that son of a gun a lesson anyway. I'm banned now. Oh well, big loss for me."

Now Vanellope really felt like a bonehead. But Ralph wasn't finished yet. "It's near impossible for him to make friends in the arcade," he went on. "He has the marines, he has me, and the guys from Xtreme Paintball are pretty cool to him too. That's it. So, yeah, he comes with me when I visit you, so he can escape all that, just for a little bit. I thought you of all people would understand."

"Ralph, I _do_ understand. I understand a lot. It's just…" Vanellope looked up at him with dewy, pleading eyes. "I just want you to myself for one day."

Ralph felt that usual guilty sting in his chest that he experienced whenever she gave him that look. Only months ago, that look would've made him do anything for her. This time, though, she was asking for too much.

"It's not just you and me anymore," he told her, just as TJ was returning from the public toilets. Nothing more was said about it, and when Vanellope returned later to Slaughter Race, without a playlist and without a smile, she didn't want to talk about it with Shank either. All she wanted to do was go bury her head under a pillow and cry, because Turbo Junior was stealing her best friend, just as Turbo had once successfully stolen her life. When were the two of them, the father and the son, the dark shadow and the chilling, haunting moon looming above her head, going to stop taking from her? When were they going to be _done?_

* * *

 **End of Chapter Three**

* * *

Leave reviews! And yes, the character of Dr. McAfee will be appearing soon. She'll be mentioned and talked about in the next chapter and hopefully by chapter five or six I'll be able to introduce her properly.


	4. Chapter 4

In which Vanellope fails to accept that Ralph can be happy and successful in life without her. This chapter's going to hurt.

* * *

 **Rewriting the Program:** **Chapter Four  
Hitting the Targets and Losing the Game**

* * *

Vanellope stormed into Shank's garage, and Shank knew immediately from the look on her young companion's face that something upsetting had happened, and that something had to do with Ralph.

"What's happened now?" Shank asked patiently, preparing herself for yet another tempestuous tirade against Ralph and _his_ young companion, the one that was still with him at Litwak's Arcade. Vanellope brandished her phone.

"Look!" she cried out in anguish. Shank did look, and raised her eyebrows.

"Oh. Ralph's uploaded a new BuzzzTube video. Have you watched it?"

" _Yes."_ Vanellope had watched it. Several times, in fact. And each time she had she'd wished she would wake up and find that she dreamed it up. It truly did feel like a nightmare. She'd been feeling kind of blue that morning, half from a race lost to a player, and half from missing Ralph, so as usual she'd opened up BuzzzTube, as Ralph's ridiculous videos always made her laugh easily. There she'd made a horrific discovery, one that utterly crushed her.

Ralph was making BuzzzTube videos again. But that wasn't the horrific part. The horrific part was that he was making them _with TJ._

Shank pressed the play button on Vanellope's phone, and the damning evidence of Ralph's betrayal came up as a hologram. The video, simply titled "Bullseye," started with Ralph in what was obviously Fix-It Felix Jr., standing still like a statue, arms extended and lined with empty soda cans. He held cans on his flat, open palms as well, and one on top of his head. He was blindfolded.

"You look like a hillbilly Christmas tree," remarked TJ's voice off-camera. Ralph sniggered, nearly losing some of the strategically placed cans. "Hold still!"

"So my buddy TJ's gonna shoot all these cans off with his paintball gun," Ralph explained to the viewers. "He's an ace shot, and I trust him completely, which is why I agreed to this."

"Bullroar. You agreed to this because you want hearts. Think fast!" Paintballs flew at Ralph from the left side of the screen, and while Ralph gave a frightened yelp and tensed up, not a single one hit him. Vanellope would have been impressed if she didn't hate the shooter with all her heart. When the last of the cans was successfully knocked off, Ralph gave a massive sigh of relief.

"Thanks for not shooting me in the crotch, kid," Ralph said as he removed the blindfold. TJ then suddenly flew into view, wielding a large cherry pie.

"Plot twist!" he cried out as he hurled it in Ralph's face. This clearly wasn't planned.

"You little bugger!" Ralph cried back, grabbing TJ before he could flee. He started tickling him and smearing pie all over his face as TJ shrieked with laughter and squirmed to break free. The video ended there, with the caption, "No cans or pies were harmed in the making of this video. Their roles were performed by professional stunt cans and pies."

"There's nothing to get upset about," Shank told Vanellope, who had her arms crossed as she scowled sourly. "They didn't do this to hurt you. They're just having fun. That's what BuzzzTube is supposed to be for."

The video was a hit, and was going viral. It already had more hearts than the ultra-popular "Open Sesabees," but that didn't distress Vanellope nearly as much as the comments did.

" _Ralph's back, and he's got company!"_

" _It's about time we got a new video! I like the kid!"_

" _Awwwww, so cute! Is that his son?!"_

" _Comedy gold. But when did Raf get a kid?"_

" _#ParentingGoals."_

" _I wish my kid could shoot like that. We'd never get robbed again."_

" _More Ralph and TJ!"_

 _"Hearts for Ralph's kid."_

"I'm Ralph's kid!" Vanellope shouted in dismay as she began to glitch erratically. "TJ's not his son! He's Turbo's son! They're all wrong!"

"Vanellope, calm down!" Shank demanded as she seized the little girl by the shoulders. "We've talked about this! You're not supposed to read the comments! They don't know anything about Ralph and TJ! They're just making assumptions!"

And Ralph and TJ kept making videos. Over the course of several days, three more of them appeared. First was "Target Practice: TJ Without Glasses vs. Ralph Wearing TJ's Glasses" in which Ralph and TJ's shooting skills were reduced by what seemed like forty to fifty percent and Ralph complained about how strong TJ's prescription was.

"Friendly reminder, you can't hit a guy with glasses," Ralph, while donning said glasses, informed a squinting TJ as the boy aimed his gun at him.

"I honestly don't know what I'm about to hit right now." He hit Ralph's shoulder, narrowly missing the can, and Ralph yelped in pain and started swearing in censored beeps and jumping around while TJ apologized profusely. The viewers in the comments section approved.

" _LOL. Ralph and TJ are like my last two brains cells personified."_

" _Me and my other visually impaired friends trying to accomplish anything."_

"' _You can't hit a guy with glasses.' TJ can and he DID."_

" _Like so TJ can get laser eye surgery. Save poor Ralph's other shoulder."_

The next two videos, unsurprisingly, didn't involve any paintball guns. They were titled "Brick Dominos," a rather astounding defiance of physics of Ralph and TJ's which TJ filmed from a birds-eye view, and "Book Titles Ralph Can't Pronounce."

"Dan-Tea's Inferno," Ralph read aloud while TJ, struggling to contain his laughter, flipped through the cards and held them up for him. "Less Miserables. Fair-and-hit 451. Jane Eye-er. Madam Boo-very. Anna Karen-nina. Tess of the…what now?!"

TJ lost it at, "The Grapes of Ralph" and went off-screen to laugh, while Ralph sat wearing a smug grin on his face that made it perfectly clear that he knew _exactly_ how to pronounce that one. The comments poured in.

" _Me reading aloud in class."_

" _What do you mean they're not pronounced that way?!"_

" _How big are the Grapes of Ralph lol."_

" _I can't decide if I'm TJ or Ralph in this video."_

Vanellope, following Shank's advice, tried not to get too worked up about it, as she had after watching "Bullseye." They were just videos, that was all. Just a couple of bored morons with a camera goofing off, just like all the other BuzzzTubers. But she couldn't help herself. She scrolled down the comments section, and every time someone mistook TJ for Ralph's son or nephew or gushed about how adorable and funny they were together, she felt like the viewer had taken a hammer and chisel and cruelly chipped off a small piece of her heart. The more hearts Ralph and TJ got, the more her own shrunk down.

"Ralph and I never made a video together," Vanellope finally realized as she watched "Book Titles Ralph Can't Pronounce" for what had to be the twentieth time, trying to understand what it was about that stupid exchange that bothered her so much. The reason Ralph had become a BuzzzTube star in the first place was because he'd been trying to raise money for a steering wheel, a steering wheel for _her._ Now he was making BuzzzTube videos for fun and, from the looks of it, piling up more money than ever, but for what this time?

"For TJ," Vanellope thought unhappily. It was all to make TJ happy. To make TJ rich and secure. To make TJ into something other than just Turbo's child. To make their oddball friendship known to the adoring public, who had no idea how she was involved in all of this.

If she logged into a BuzzzTube account as soon as the next video showed up and commented "First!" like so many obnoxious, unclever viewers did, it would mean more than one thing. She really had been first. She had been Ralph's first friend, not TJ. She had laughed with him first, not TJ. She, not TJ, was the first kid he'd been a father for when that role was being heinously violated by the wrong person (the very same wrong person, in fact). And nobody on the internet, save the Slaughter Race crew, knew that.

They could have made some videos together, her and Ralph. The opportunity had been there, and Yesss would directed them herself. Why hadn't they? Well, because Ralph had wanted to be her hero and do it all himself. Because she'd gotten sidetracked and snuck off to Slaughter Race when she was supposed to be click-baiting. She kicked herself for that now. Her and Ralph's videos would have been great. They would have drawn in millions, maybe even billions of hearts. And the viewers would have seen for themselves that she and Ralph were a perfect pair of friends, a loving and supportive comedy team, inseparable and incomparable. _That's what they think he and TJ are. Ha! Those numbskulls have no idea._

Maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe she and Ralph could still film some videos together, and possible hijack his and TJ's winning streak. That would be sweet, to see the look on TJ's face as his fifteen minutes of fame vanished into obscurity and her time in the spotlight by Ralph's side began. But for now, Slaughter Race was busy, and she had no time to focus on a BuzzzTube career. She would have to wait until things slowed down a bit, and then she would broach the subject to Ralph. She would also have to pretend to be happy about his and TJ's success, and not give any hint to the fact that it was eating her up inside.

But the final straw came when Ralph and TJ uploaded a video called "Ralph and TJ Do the Zoom Challenge" and Vanellope's already fragile shell broke as if Ralph had crushed it himself between his fingers.

It started off innocently enough, with a compilation of TJ and Ralph's failed attempts at executing the trendy dance challenge, throughout which Ralph pulled the blanket TJ was sitting on too slowly, too quickly, or at the wrong moment. Once, he pulled so hard that TJ was hurled into an accidental backwards somersault, and Vanellope actually chuckled at that. But then…

"Wait, I have an idea!" TJ flew off, and Vanellope blinked as she heard the roar of an engine in the background. _What is that? There aren't any cars in Fix-It Felix Jr._ But there was one, and TJ drove into view with it.

" **THAT'S MY KART!"** she shrieked, and the other Slaughter Race characters turned to look at her and at the video, in which TJ was doing the rhythmic, mime-esque movements in the driver's seat to the beat of the hip-hop song while wearing sunglasses. Very conveniently,the side of the car facing the viewers wasn't the one that had Ralph and Vanellope's signatures on it.

" _Trappin' out the backstreet, runnin' through the packs like a track meet._ _ **ZOOM!"**_ TJ slammed down on the pedal at exactly the right moment, and hurtled off screen with his head flung back triumphantly as he gripped the steering wheel. Vanellope's mouth hung open in crumbled disbelief, because not only did Ralph not stop him from driving _their_ kart, he was laughing about it as well.

"Nailed it!" was the wrecker's jubilant verdict. The video then cut to Ralph wearing the sunglasses and sitting in front of the camera, doing the dance with his arms and hands surprisingly well, until the song hit _**"ZOOM!"**_ and TJ launched himself into Ralph's chest.

" _OOF!"_ Ralph and TJ fell backwards, cackling buoyantly. It was cute and harmless, but the Slaughter Race characters held back their smiles for Vanellope's sake, as the child-racer looked ready to sob.

"Ralph, how could you?!" she demanded tearfully on the phone barely five minutes later. "That's _our_ kart! How could you let him drive it?!"

"It was only for, like, five seconds!" Ralph defended himself. "And it wasn't even a race! It's just a funny internet challenge! It's not a big deal!"

"It's a big deal to _me!"_ Vanellope wailed. Ralph sighed and rubbed his eyes.

"Alright, alright, if it's buggin' you that much…" After they hung up, he sought out TJ, who was on his brand new BuzzzPhone, watching the number of views of his and Ralph's videos rise rapidly with a pleased little smile of pride. "Hey, buddy, bad news. We've gotten take the Zoom Challenge video down."

"Why? It's getting hearts." _And some pretty darn good comments too,_ the hybrid thought to himself as he scrolled down and read them.

" _OMG! This is the BEST ONE YET!"_

" _lol TJ hacked the zoom challenge."_

" _Ralph and TJ, 1. You and your kid, 0."_

" _Sweet-looking ride, TJ."_

" _TJ be like, 'They see me rollin', they hatin'."_

" _It looks like TJ uses that car for paintball target practice."_

"Vanellope's angry that we used her kart," Ralph explained. "We probably should have asked first."

TJ rolled his eyes. Of course. Of course Vanellope was being a whiny little pissbaby about it. He would be lying if he said he was surprised by her textbook spoiled brat reaction to seeing someone else play with the toy she'd discarded.

This wasn't the first bit of pointless drama that had occurred over him driving the kart either. Back in Fix-It Felix Jr., while he and Ralph were filming the video, the Sugar Rush racers had been spying on them from their parents' windows. When they saw TJ, the scion of the crook who'd conned them all out of a decade and a half of their lives, jump into the racing car by Ralph's shack, they freaked.

"MOM! DAD! _TJ'S STEALING VANELLOPE'S CAR!"_ Explaining to Fix-It Felix and Sergeant Calhoun, who promptly dashed outside to investigate, what the Zoom Challenge was had been an experience, to say the least. Luckily, Sergeant Calhoun knew TJ's true nature, as they lived in the same game, and she knew he wasn't a thief, so he didn't get in trouble, just a warning to be more careful. Felix had asked Ralph if Vanellope would mind if they used her kart for a video. Ralph had said he wasn't sure she would even care. She had a new car in Slaughter Race now. She hadn't even asked Ralph what had happened to the one they'd made together.

"You know, technically speaking, it's _your_ kart now," TJ pointed out to Ralph. "Your name's on it too."

"Yeah, I know, but—" Ralph shrugged helplessly. "Let's not fight about it. We can make other videos."

"Okay, fine," TJ surrendered, feeling disappointed and more than a little ticked at Vanellope for being Vanellope. The Zoom Challenge video was taken down, much to the viewers' dismay. But they were pacified when Ralph and TJ uploaded a new batch of videos, all which were received with gusto and circulated the web quickly. Vanellope, on the other hand, wasn't pacified, though she watched each new video somewhere close to around fifty times each. She never pressed "like" either.

* * *

"You can have the mini cupcake if you can guess which cup it's under," TJ told Ralph.

"Okay." TJ placed the little frosted vanilla treat under one of the three red plastic cups on the picnic table and shuffled them around while Ralph watched closely.

"This one," the wrecker said, tapping on it with his finger. TJ lifted the cup. Ralph had guessed correctly. "Ha ha, yes!"

"Con-gra-tu-lations," TJ sang as he lifted the other two cups to reveal two larger, better-looking cupcakes with sprinkles. "You got plaaaaaayed!"

" _WHAT?!"_

End of video.

* * *

"Would you rather be trapped naked in the Pac-Man maze with no exits and no where to hide for eight hours, or do four rounds of gameplay in Fix-It Felix Jr. naked?"

"Why am I naked in both these situations?"

"Because. Answer the question."

"Pac-Man."

"Really?"

"Yup. Pac-Man."

TJ grinned. "You'd be the surprise bonus level."

"I'd be the last ever level because Pac-Man as a franchise would end forever if the players ever caught a glimpse of _my_ cherries." TJ threw his head back and laughed while Ralph smirked and sipped from a soda can.

End of video.

* * *

"Bullseye 2: Ralph's Unresolved Issues" started with TJ with his back to the viewers, quieting concentrating on drawing something on a red brick wall in chalk. The caption beneath him read, "As all of you already know, Ralph's paintball aiming skills aren't as sharp as mine, so today we're doing target practice on a very motivating target."

"Okay, Ralph, it's ready!" TJ stepped aside to reveal a crude, cartoonish chalk drawing of Gene, above which was written the word "Dumblander." Vanellope managed a smile as she remembered how she and Ralph used to make fun of Gene all the time, and play the occasional prank on him. That had been fun. That had been a lot of fun, in fact.

TJ flew off-screen. "Aim for his mustache," he instructed Ralph. "Three, two, one, _FIRE!"_

The shots fired from somewhere behind the camera hit a spot far below the assigned region. "I said mustache."

"I heard you." Another paintball hit chalk-Gene in the martini olives. "I'm gonna need you to draw like six more of these."

End of video.

* * *

"Ralph and TJ Do the Zoom Challenge" had wounded Vanellope deeply, but nothing prepared her for the punch to the gut that Ralph and TJ called "Dad Joke."

"Everyone keeps saying in the comments that you're my Dad," TJ remarked. He and Ralph seemed to be in what looked like a convenience store. TJ was loading armfuls of chips and other snacks into the shopping cart while Ralph, with his back to him and the viewers, browsed the magazine stand. "When have I ever called you Dad? I've never even called you Dad accidentally."

"You're not eating all of that," Ralph replied without turning around. "Pick one thing and put the rest back."

"Fine." TJ started putting some of the food back on the shelves. The video then cut to Ralph and TJ sitting in the bleachers of what Vanellope recognized as Let's Play Baseball from Litwak's Arcade, while a game was in progress. Ralph was wearing a beer hat, and TJ had a giant foam hand.

"I'm saying that you wouldn't make a good Dad, I'm just saying that it would be weird if you were _my_ Dad—Oh, come on! You call that a swing?!"

Cut to Ralph pushing TJ on the swings in a park. "I guess I can kind of understand where people are coming from, but we don't even do father-son stuff!" The camera shifted to the right to reveal Bowser pushing Bowser Jr. on the other swing while staring confusedly at Ralph and TJ.

Cut to Ralph sitting with his back against his tree trunk, reading the newspaper with his reading glasses on and sipping from a mug that read "#1 Dad."

"If you were a real Dad, I betcha you'd be one of those goofy, embarrassing Dads who says 'Wassuuuuup' and cuts their kids' lunch sandwiches into shapes," TJ was saying from behind the camera. "Your kids would be like, 'Oh, Dad, would you mind dropping me off two blocks away from school? I really like the walk.'"

"Yeah, well, if you were in school, you'd be that kid who gets hit in the head with a dodgeball in P.E. and deserves it." TJ wordlessly reached out and smacked the bottom of the mug so that coffee splashed up in Ralph's face. "You're grounded, mister!"

End of video.

A caption appeared. "Special thanks to our guest stars Bowser and Bowser Jr. Shout out to Felix for letting us borrow his Dad mug." Then there was also a short, extra clip with TJ messing around with two giant, floppy foam hands and trying (and failing) to pick up objects and break bricks. "I think Ralph might actually be my Dad after all."

* * *

"This is Brandy Rivers and welcome to 'I Really Meme It This Time,'" announced the popular, British-accented human world BuzzzTube vlogger. "And today we're covering the online comeback of the year, Wreck-It Ralph! As you all remember, last November the 8-bit video game villain from the eighties arcade game Fix-It Felix Jr. took the world by storm overnight, in a series of hilarious videos that broke the world wide web and our rib cages! Now, after a hiatus of nearly a year, he's back again, and this time he's got a sidekick!"

" _Sidekick?_ What are we, part of the Marvel universe now?" asked TJ as he and Ralph sat watching the vlog in Game Central Station on TJ's phone.

"Going by the yet-to-be revealed initials 'TJ,' Ralph's little buddy appears to be some sort of mix between a sprite and a grey-skinned Smurf—"

Ralph and TJ howled with laughter. "Grey-skinned Smurf! I love it!" Ralph cried, slapping his knee. Several characters stopped and stared at them. When the BuzzzTube duo's laughter dwindled, they had to pause the video and go back to the part they'd missed.

"Whether he's a character from an upcoming game or an original fan-made creation, nobody knows. Nintendo has even already confirmed that TJ's not one of their designs, so the general consensus is that this is an independent animator's work. But what everyone seems to be saying is that these new videos, alternating between scripted comedy skits and humorous slice of life moments, have a completely different vibe than the old ones…"

"Yeah, because Ralph's actually enjoying himself and not busting his ass to buy a console part for an ungrateful half-pint," TJ thought, glancing sideways at his wrecker friend.

It was almost as if he'd telepathically passed his bias on to Brandy Rivers. "It has been claimed, by some of my fellow vloggers, that the first round of Wreck-It Ralph videos rather reeked of desperation for attention, especially in the way they recycled so many popular trends while contributing nothing really special or ground-breaking…"

"That's not fair," said Vanellope aloud to Shank, as they sat watching the vlog on a curb in Slaughter Race. "He was doing his best!"

Back at Litwak's, Ralph shrugged. "Fair enough. They were a load of crud anyway."

Brandy Rivers went on, "I definitely agree that the Ralph and TJ ones feel much more fun and natural, and that Ralph and TJ as a team have a likeable dynamic. I for one am really looking forward to seeing what the makers of these videos come up with next."

"Ditto," said Ralph as he gave TJ a gentle chuck under the chin with his finger. TJ smiled affectionately.

The money that their videos were sucking in was mind-blowing. The number had already long surpassed what Ralph's old solo videos had reached, and it was still growing. He could have bought the Sugar Rush steering wheel ten times over by now, but he didn't need to buy it, nor was he interested in buying anything else, so the money just sat there and swelled, adding up like a game score. Ralph couldn't help but wonder what the Nicelanders would say if he revealed to them that he was rich. They had no idea of the scale of his internet fame. Half of them didn't even know how to send an email, let alone surf the web (Gene obviously wasn't tech-savvy, otherwise they wouldn't have uploaded "Bullseye 2.")

For now he was keeping it as his own delicious little secret until the perfect moment. Half of the money, of course, was TJ's, a cushy little nest egg for whatever the future held for him, whether it was making more BuzzzTube videos or…something else.

"Uncle Kohut says we should invest the money," TJ said. "Or put it in a high-interest savings account to accumulate interest."

Ralph blinked. He had no idea what either of those things meant. "Yeah, um, sure kid, we'll talk to him about that later. But right now, how about we go to BurgerTime to celebrate? Being famous is hungry work."

TJ's stomach growled in agreement. "Yes, please." Cheeseburgers with the works and fries and vanilla shakes. He couldn't think of a better victory meal.

"You know what's really funny?" TJ asked Ralph as they made their way over to the fast food themed game. "We could go to eBay and buy our own BurgerTime console if we wanted to. And not let anyone else go in."

Ralph chuckled. "Yeah, we could. And we could buy our own Tappers too, for when you're old enough and your uncles finally let you try root beer. But, you know…" The bad guy shrugged. "Why replace something that's not broken?"

* * *

"I am not angry. I am not angry. I am not angry." Butcher Boy had advised her to try chanting these words to herself whenever negative feelings towards Ralph and TJ flared up. The problem was, these feelings were flaring up all the time, because Ralph and TJ's videos were _everywhere._ Every time she stepped out of Slaughter Race, there was one of them was playing on an electric billboard, or someone was watching one on their mobile device.

"I am not angry. I am calm and serene and happy for Ralph for finding fame and fortune and success _**WITH TURBO'S SON!"**_

This sudden, irate outburst drew many eyes towards her. Vanellope paused, took a deep, steadying breath, and continued on her way. "I am not angry. I am not angry. I am not letting the bad thoughts into my brain. I am not—"

" _Con-gra-tu-lations, you got plaaaaaayed!"_ Two lawn gnomes from some sort of gardening game were watching TJ's cupcake prank on an iPad.

"We've got to try this trick on Greg," one of them said. The other sniggered.

"It's not that funny!" Vanellope exclaimed heatedly. "How is it funny?! Oh, no, Ralph doesn't get a bigger cupcake! Big whoop! He can go to Sugar Rush and get one the size of a house!"

The gnomes stared at her, confused and reasonably alarmed. Vanellope, flushing a little in mortification at her lack of control, cleared her throat. "I-I'm sorry. I'm having a stressful day. Please return to your video-viewing, and don't forget to give Ralph hearts. He's my best friend."

"Oh, really?" one of the gnomes asked. "How come you're not in the videos, then?"

Vanellope's eyes began to twitch, and a sharp glitch went through her. "Excuse me." She stalked off, clutching her arms to her sides and chanting faster, "I'm not angry, I'm not angry, I'm not angry, I'm not angry, I'm not angry."

But she was.

She was angry at herself, for letting this happen. "Ralph hasn't even invited me to be a guest star. Bowser and Bowser Jr. got in, but not me." What did this mean? Were Ralph and TJ excluding her on purpose, or was Ralph just beginning to forget she existed? "He never would have even gotten into BuzzzTube if it wasn't for me!"

A short stretch of time passed with no new videos, and Vanellope was, temporarily, relieved from her agony, believing that Ralph and TJ were taking a break from making them or even stopping altogether. She was even civil to TJ the next time Ralph brought him to visit. Little did she know that the reason for this brief hiatus was because they were planning, and rehearsing, something very, very special. When she asked them, for politeness's sake, if they were working on anything new, they just looked at each other and smiled as if they shared a secret. A secret they couldn't, and didn't, let her in on, causing her level of anxiety to skyrocket again. _What are they up to now?_

As a subscriber to Ralph's channel, Vanellope got a notification that a new video had been uploaded. Hesitatingly, she read the title. "Who Doesn't Love A Bad Guy? An Original Song."

 _Oh no. Oh, no, no, no. This has gotta be a joke. This can't be real._ She didn't want to watch it, but her finger acted on its own and pressed play anyway.

The video started with TJ and Ralph sitting cross-legged in front of Ralph's brick pile. TJ had a keyboard on his lap. Vanellope didn't even know that he could play the keyboard. There were probably a lot of things about TJ that she didn't know about, as she'd never had a one-on-one conversation with him, or spent much time with him away from Ralph's watchful, refereeing eye.

"So Ralph and I had a bet," TJ began. "The details of said bet will not be divulged, but Ralph lost. So now he has to reveal to the world that he can sing."

"I already knew he could sing," Vanellope muttered testily under her breath. "This isn't news to me."

"We were originally going to go with a good old-fashioned Elton John cover, but where's the fun in that?" TJ went on. "We decided that if Ralph was going to make his musical debut, he was going to make it with his own song."

"Our own song, kid," Ralph corrected him, smiling. TJ smiled back and, after rubbing his palms together and wiggling his fingers to stretch them, began to play a catchy, upbeat, vaudeville-esque tune on the keyboard.

" _Who doesn't looooooove a bad guy?"_ TJ began to sing. _"If you say 'me' then I must ask you why! They're the best part of the game, and that's no lie! Oh, who doesn't looooooove a bad guy?"_

" _They say we're no good, we bad eggs in the batch! Bad guys finish last, and die!"_ Ralph joined in _. "But the players will wait, for us to re-gen-er-ate, because who doesn't loooooooove a bad guy?"_

TJ had a good voice, but Ralph had a great voice. "He could sing professionally if he wanted to," Vanellope thought. But the thought had probably never occurred to the big lunkhead, with all his talk about never wanting to go to work. And it wasn't as if he could leave Fix-It Felix Jr. for a music career, as she'd been able to leave Sugar Rush for a new racing gig…

An interested batch of Slaughter Race characters were gathering around her now. "Turn it up, I wanna hear this," Little Debbie said. Vanellope did so, even though she didn't want to.

" _You can't pick a bone, with Bowser on his throne, because then where would Mario be?"_ TJ was singing now. _"A plumber with no life except unclogging the pipe, because no one kidnapped Princess Peach!"_

Ralph took over enthusiastically. _"I KNOOOOOOOW Sonic's fast, but without Dr. Eggman, how long would he last? A good guy needs a world to save! A bad guy only needs to mis-be-have!"_

They sang together. _"Who doesn't looooooooooooove a bad guy? Who doesn't looooooooooooove a bad guy? If you're cross with the boss, then why even try? Oh, who doesn't loooooooooooooove a bad guy?"_

"What's going on?" Pyro asked as he approached the group. Little Debbie shushed him. "Wait a minute, is that Ralph and TJ?!"

"SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

" _It's fun to get lost in a maze, on those lazy days, but let me point out a fact, my man,"_ TJ sang to Ralph. _"You can sign the dotted line of fun, to try to outrun, the ghost gang chasing Pac-ac-Man!"_

Ralph retorted with, _"And who was it who said, 'No more House of the Dead!' Whatcha gonna shoot if not a zombie in the head?"_

TJ bellowed, " _How about you shoot for the staaaaaaaaaars instead?"_

Ralph shrugged. _"Well, only one game costs a quarter!"_

" _Then call me a supporter!"_

" _Why go broke? Toss a bloke out of his tree trunk bed!"_

The Slaughter Race characters were either tapping their feet or snapping their fingers in time with the music. Only Vanellope remained still. Then, TJ's piano-playing slowed, and Ralph sang softly.

" _My young friend, there are days, when it's hard to explain, how it feels to be villainized, to go without praise. There's no prize for the guys who rain on your parade…"_

" _BUUUUUUUUUT,"_ TJ butted in, picking up the tune on the keyboard and bringing it back up to its original speed. _"You're the only reason there's a game to play!"_

" _WOOOOAH-OH-OH! People don't understand, that in the pixelated land, it's the villains on whom you rely! You need a good boss to beat…"_

" _...a strong foe to unseat…"_ added TJ.

Ralph's turn again. _"You just can't compete with that perfect defeat…"_

Ralph and TJ finished together. " _Oh, who doesn't loooooooooove a bad guy?! Who doesn't loooooooooooove a bad guy?! They're the best part of the game that you want to buy! Ohhhhhhh, who doesn't love a bad guy?! Who doesn't love a bad guy? Ohhhhhhh, who doesn't_ _ **loooooooooooooove**_ _…a bad guy?!"_

TJ ended the song with a cheery string of notes, and then he and Ralph laughed and high-fived. "YES! Nailed it!" The Slaughter Race characters applauded, but Vanellope was stunned into silence.

"Man, those two can SING!" cried Little Debbie. "Broadway's missing out, for sure!"

Vanellope felt like she was missing out too. She didn't even bother to watch the bloopers and outtakes that came right after, which included Ralph and TJ messing up the song lyrics and laughing, deliberately singing badly out of boredom, Ralph accidentally smacking the keyboard out of TJ's lap, and TJ and Ralph singing and playing the opening lines to "Mamma Mia" instead of their own composition.

" _I've been cheated by yooooooooou since I don't know when!"_

" _So I've made up my miiiiiiiiiiiind it must come to an end! Look at me nooooooow—"_ They both started giggling uncontrollably before Ralph could finish.

Vanellope went for a long walk instead, with her hands shoved deep into her sweater pockets, trying to outpace reality. But "Who Doesn't Love a Bad Guy?" was an ear worm and followed her wherever she went. "It can't get any worse than this," she thought miserably.

The Slaughter Race NPCs weren't the only ones thrilled with "Who Doesn't Love a Bad Guy?" The subscribers and viewers were ecstatic, to say the least. The comments and reviews were raving.

" _AMAZING!"_

" _TJ my baby ur a prince."_

" _Holy shit Raf my man where did that voice come from?!"_

" _Can Ralph and TJ sing at my wedding?!"_

" _New favourite song."_

" _Love love love!"_

 _"This has added ten years to my life!"_

" _Put this on itunes!"_

" _It's so TRUE! What's a video game without a good bad guy? It's boring. It's Tetris."_

" _#TeamBadGuys."_

" _This has got to be the weirdest twist on a 'villain song' I've ever seen. I love it, though. Do another one."_

"Hello, my two shining stars!" Yesss cooed delightedly to Ralph and TJ over the phone. "Have I got news for you!"

iTunes wanted to make "Who Doesn't Love a Bad Guy?" available for purchase. They were receiving thousands of requests for it. How soon could Ralph and TJ come in to record it?

"And that's not all…" Yesss went on. She wanted Ralph and TJ to appear live on BuzzzTalk, the weekly talk show she hosted in which she interviewed trending web celebrities. "But I'm thinking we'll do it in the style of a Q&A, since the subscribers themselves are dying to know more about the two of you!"

"What's Q&A stand for? Queasy and allergic?" Ralph joked. TJ snorted.

Yesss laughed. "Question and Answer, silly! The NetUsers ask the questions, and you two give the answers! Now, here's what I'm envisioning for the lineup…"

The first person she would be interviewing was Dr. Cheryl McAfee, a renowned Netizen psychiatrist on the web who had recently published a bestselling memoir about her work with her patients called _Rewriting the Program._ "Listen, I am one hundred percent on board for spreading mental health awareness, but let's face it, the book's a bit of a downer, and everyone's probably going to be feeling a bit bummed out when her segment's over. Sooooooooooooo, that's when the two of you come in with your _brilliant_ little pick-me-up song! Q&A will be right after, and boom! A million times five more hearts! What do you guys say?!"

"Sounds good to me," Ralph answered. "What about you, TJ?"

"I'll have to ask my uncles, but it sounds like fun," TJ said.

"Perfect! Let me know by tonight, and make up your minds about iTunes ASAP so I can get back to them! Toodles!" Yesss hung up, and Ralph turned to TJ and grinned.

"You hear that, kid? We've made a one-hit wonder! _And_ we're going to be on TV! It doesn't get any better than this!" TJ, smiling brightly like the lucky kid he knew he was, fully agreed.

* * *

 **End of Chapter**

* * *

"Who Doesn't Love A Bad Guy?" are my original lyrics. I felt like Ralph deserved his own song, since Vanellope got one in the sequel. Please review!


	5. Chapter 5

Holy shit was this chapter fun to write. Honestly, I would freak if Disney had Ralph do an original Broadway-esque musical number in Wreck-It Ralph 3. I mean, for crying out loud, he is voiced by _John C. Reilly!_ It's **FATE,** Goddammit! I'm still sore that they gave Ralph an internet meme song instead. Oh well. As the saying goes, "If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself."

"Who Doesn't Love a Bad Guy?" are my own original lyrics.

* * *

 **Rewriting the Program:** **Chapter Five  
A Smash Hit and a Wrecking Blow**

* * *

"Do you have any queens?" Elsa asked.

"Go fish," answered Ariel. Vanellope held her cards in her hands, yet she really couldn't focus on what she had or even on what she was going to ask for, because from the other room, Vanellope could hear someone playing Ralph and TJ's latest upload, "You've Got A Friend in Me" (Most Requested Song Cover). She was trying her best to ignore it, but it was leaking into the princess lounge and into her ear drums.

Ralph's smooth, adept voice was singing as TJ played the keyboard. _"You're got a friiiiiiiiend in me…oh, you've got a friiiiiiiend in me!"_

TJ took over. _"When the road looks…rough ahead…and you're miles and miles from your nice warm bed…"_

" _You just remember what your old pal said!"_ came in Ralph. _"Boy, you've got a friiiiiiend in me!"_

There was really no escaping Ralph and TJ, was there? What made matters worse was the knowledge that Ralph was on the internet _right now,_ for reasons that didn't involve her at all. He and TJ were together at BuzzzTube, rehearsing for their highly-anticipated performance of "Who Doesn't Love a Bad Guy?" on Yesss's livestreamed show.

"Sorry, kid, but there's no time for hanging out this week," Ralph had told her over the phone. "Yesss wants us to go full-on Broadway with this. TJ and I have to sing _and_ dance, so we've got all this new choreography to learn, and some new lines in the song as well…"

"Oh, um, okay…" Vanellope gulped. _New lines? Choreography?_ Was BuzzzTube putting on a whole Wreck-It Ralph _musical?_

"I can't wait for you to see it!" Ralph went on, either deliberately ignoring or oblivious to the deep disappointment and apprehension in her voice. Vanellope figured it was the latter. "It's gonna be one heck of a show! Yesss had this one really great idea—actually, no, I won't spoil it for you. You're going to love it, though! I got you a VIP pass!"

"Vanellope?" Moana addressed the dazed young racer in the present. "It's your turn."

"You're going to be sitting with TJ's uncles," Ralph was announcing in Vanellope's mind. "Is that okay? They're the best seats in the house!"

"Vanellope, are you okay?" Ariel asked. Vanellope snapped out of her flashback and blinked her way back to OhMyDisney. "You look…distressed."

"I'm not distressed!" Vanellope yelled out, too quickly. She chuckled forcefully and awkwardly as she glitched. "Who's distressed?! What's there to be distressed about?! Ha ha!"

" _You got troubles, and I got 'em too…"_ came in TJ's voice.

" _There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you…"_ sang Ralph.

They sang together. _"We stick together, we can see it through! Oh, you've got a friiiiiiiiiend in me!"_ Vanellope slammed her palms down on the table.

"Alright, that's enough!" she cried as she jumped down from her seat, abandoning both the card game and her now concerned-looking friends. She marched out of the lounge straight to the source of the offending track, Sheriff Woody and Buzz Lightyear's shared dressing room down the hall. The singing grew louder as she approached.

"Man, too bad our fourth movie's already done," she heard the famous Pixar cowboy say behind the door. "We could've gotten these two to sing in the credits!"

"There's always Toy Story 5," Buzz Lightyear replied. Furiously, Vanellope pounded on the door with her little fist.

"Alright, alright, hold your horses, I'm coming." Woody opened the door, clad in a bathrobe plus horse-themed pajamas pants. The princesses' craze for comfy off-duty clothes had spread to the rest of their website.

"Oh, hi there, little deputy! What can I do for you—" Vanellope glitched right past him into the room, where she went straight for Buzz's laptop to close the tab playing the video and make TJ's stupid face disappear. _Ha! Take that, TJ! You've got no friend_ _ **in here!**_

"I, um, take it you're not a fan of Ralph and TJ?" asked Buzz, after swallowing a mouthful of pizza. "Or is it just the song?"

"It's the _everything!"_ Vanellope spat. "The song! The TJ! The Ralph! I hate it!"

"Hey, now, kiddo, there's no need to get so riled up over a song cover," Woody told her. "It's just a bit of harmless fun. If you don't like it, watch another one."

"Harmless?! You're calling it _harmless?!_ Have you ever had to listen to _your_ best friend sing the friendship theme song with someone else?!" Woody and Buzz both stared at the overwrought child in confusion.

"Best friend?" Buzz asked. "Are you talking about TJ?"

"I'm talking about _Ralph!"_ Vanellope cried. "He's my best friend! We've been best friends for years! TJ's just some dumb kid he babysits! I'm the one he really loves!"

Woody and Buzz glanced at each other skeptically _._ "They don't believe me," Vanellope realized with rising horror. She understood there and then, from the looks on their faces, that she must sound like a raving lunatic to them.

Oh, sweet mother of monkey milk, she thought, as her stomach reeled like a race car out of control, she sounded like a _fangirl._

"He _is_ my best friend!" she insisted to Disney's most famous pair of best friends. "And I can prove it!" She reached down her sweatshirt and pulled out her half of her cookie medal.

"Look! See this?" she said, waving it before them. "It spells out 'You're my Hero,' and Ralph's got the other half! Hold on a sec—"

She dialed Ralph's number, expecting, as usual, an immediate reply. But Ralph didn't pick up. Vanellope blinked, befuddled and bereaved. Why wasn't he picking up? He always picked up right away!

She quickly dialed again. "Come on, come on, you big diaper baby, answer the phone!" In BuzzzTube, Ralph's BuzzzPhone vibrated on a table next to his half-eaten sandwich while he and TJ were on stage, working through some dance moves with Yesss's choreographer.

"Can we do jazz hands when Ralph sings _'It's all hands on deck?'"_ TJ asked the choreographer. "Like this?" He demonstrated.

"Ooooooo, good idea, kid!" Ralph exclaimed. "I love jazz hands!"

"I suppose that would be fitting," the choreographer said. "Let's try it. Ready? A five, six, seven, eight!"

Back in OhMyDisney, Woody and Buzz looked embarrassed for Vanellope as she stared at her unanswered phone in dismay. "I'm, uh, sure Ralph will call you back later," Woody said uncomfortably. Buzz cleared his throat.

"Do you…want us to play a different video for you?" the space ranger asked. "Maybe a cover of 'Be Our Guest?' That might cheer you up."

"No…" Vanellope sniffed as tears began to flow to her eyes. She took a tissue from the box Woody offered her and blew her nose into it. "I don't wanna be anything right now except alone."

She shuffled dejectedly out of the dressing room and closed the door behind her. "Poor kid," she heard Woody pityingly say to his friend.

"Yeah. Internet fans sure can get obsessive sometimes," Buzz remarked as he took a large bite of his pizza slice. A glob of red sauce fell onto his spacesuit. "It's not healthy."

" **I'M NOT A FAN!"** Vanellope shrieked, giving their dressing room door a hard, angry kick before running off. In no time, TJ and Ralph's cover was playing again from behind it.

" _You've got a friiiiiiiiiend in me…oh, you've got a friiiiiiiiiend in me…"_

"Alright, let's take ten and then we'll work some more on that last verse," the BuzzTube choreographer said. Ralph and TJ made their way over to their break table, where Ralph moped his damp brow and neck with a towel while checking his phone.

"Two missed calls from Vanellope," he commented to TJ as he tossed the towel aside and reached for the remainder of his sandwich. He took a bite and, with a mouth half-full of ham and cheese, he said, "She must have discovered some new burger joint or something. I'll call her back later."

A BuzzzTube assistant approached them with a platter stacked with fresh sandwiches and two ice-cold Cherry Cokes and placed them down on the table. "Can I get you two anything else?" she asked as she took away the old platter and the empty bottles.

"Nope. This is perfect. Thank you very much," Ralph said. TJ thanked her too. Ralph unscrewed the cap of his cola and took a long, refreshing swig. "Ahhhhhhh, that's nice. There's really no business like show business, is there, kid?"

"Nope," TJ agreed as he clinked his own Coke bottle against Ralph's. "There is not. At least not one where they keep on feeding you."

"Too bad it won't last, though." Ralph understood how the internet worked. By next year, he and TJ would probably be minor, irrelevant BuzzzTube personalities, replaced by a llama riding a motorcycle or some college kids who could play Greensleeves with birthday party noisemakers. If they were lucky, though, they would still have a loyal cult following of subscribers to give them hearts. He, for one, planned on enjoying being the centre of attention for as long as it lasted. There was no Fix-It Felix Jr. around, hogging all the spotlight. He was back at home, wiping down sticky countertops and keeping his fifteen rambunctious children in line. For once, Ralph didn't envy him, at all.

 _He_ was living the life, at long last. He was letting his inner and long-repressed Fred Astaire loose, singing and dancing his heart out. He had TJ to goof off with on their breaks, _and_ they got as many sandwiches and colas as they wanted, just by asking! What more did a guy need?

"You know who probably hates us so much right now?" TJ prompted as he reached for a sandwich.

"Who? Gene?" While he and TJ had been filming "You've Got A Friend in Me," Gene had been in a particularly bad mood that night (he and his girlfriend Nicelander Deanna had gotten into yet another argument) so he had come out of the building to demand that Ralph and TJ keep their voices down.

TJ's response had been to mock the mustachioed Nicelander. "Do you want to be in the video? I have a verse for you to sing." He then started to play and sing to the tune of the iconic Toy Story song.

" _I've got a martini in me! I'm on a forty-year drinking spree! Being drunk…keeps me sane…when Ralph chucks me a-cross the game! And the players don't even know my name, so nooooooooooow I've got martinis in me!"_

"You little creep! You should be locked up with your father!" Gene spat while Ralph was busy laughing his head off. Not long ago, those words would have left an aching bruise on TJ. Now, he didn't even care. He just started playing a different quick tune on the keyboard.

" _Oh, Mr. Gene, there's no need to be mean! God forbid we kid with a martini machine!"_

" _Maybe like your olives you're turn-ing green—!"_ Ralph quickly improvised. He was amazed by how quickly new song lyrics came to him now. Maybe he really was a showman at heart.

TJ cocked a finger gun at him approvingly. "Nice!"

"Oh, forget it!" Gene snapped as he stormed off in the opposite direction. Ralph and TJ laughed at his retreating back and fist-bumped.

"Telling Gene off in song! I should have thought of that years ago!" Ralph exclaimed. The camera had recorded the whole thing, but Ralph and TJ couldn't include it in the video, since they didn't have Gene's permission to film him in-person. They could only get away with a bad chalk drawing.

"I'm talking about Dr. McAfee," TJ corrected Ralph back in the present. "We're kind of going to be stealing her thunder. Clyde lent me her book, and I've started reading it. She's doing some really important stuff at Firewall—"

"Firewall?" Ralph asked.

"Her psychiatric clinic," TJ explained. "But it's not one of those scary ones from the horror games. She actually _helps_ characters with mental health problems. And we're doing our big number _after_ her interview. I feel really bad."

"You don't need to feel bad. Dr. McAfee's a fan of you two," Maybee interrupted as he came over with a new top hat for Ralph to practice dancing with (the wrecker had accidentally stepped on and squashed the old one earlier). "She has said she's looking forward to meeting you."

"See, there you go, kid! No weight on your conscience!" Ralph accepted the top hat and tossed it upwards so that it flipped and landed upright on his head. Then he snapped his fingers. "Right! Now let's get back to it!"

* * *

"Oh, my God, _finally!"_ exclaimed Taffyta relievedly as Felix and Calhoun carried in the box containing their new big-screen, high definition TV.

"Hopefully this one's big enough to show us Ralph on his big night!" Felix joked as they set it down.

"Yeah, big enough to show us Ralph falling flat on his face on stage," Rancis said. His foster siblings and fellow racers sniggered meanly.

"None of that," Sergeant Calhoun snapped, and immediately her children went silent. "Remember what we talked about before?"

" _Our favourite motive is to be supportive,"_ the racers recited in monotone unison.

"Right. And we're all going to be supportive of Ralph and TJ, no matter what happens," Felix said. As he and his wife unpacked the box and set up the TV in a good, high spot where all the guests at their viewing party would be able to see it, he couldn't help but feel a little anxious for Ralph. He loved him like a brother, but the truth of the matter was, Ralph wasn't exactly…graceful. He would keep the remote on him to quickly turn off the TV and spare Ralph any further humiliation if, _by chance,_ there were any incidents.

"So…have you ever seen Wreck-It dance before?" Sergeant Calhoun asked Felix later that night when they were alone and their children were back in their own game.

"No," Felix admitted with a sigh. "I'm just hoping BuzzzTube's stage isn't too slippery."

He was keeping his fingers crossed that all would go well for his friend. Ralph had also mentioned something about a surprise, and had asked Felix to invite all the Bad Anon members to the viewing party and make sure that they watch the whole thing. For TJ, Felix had also invited the characters from Xtreme Paintball. There was no need to invite TJ's uncles. They were going to the internet to watch it live.

Ralph's big night, as Felix had put it, approached fast. Vanellope, who usually preferred everything in life to be fast, wished that time would have slowed to a crawl in this one instance, so that she could have been more prepared to watch her most beloved friend sing and dance with a Turbo lookalike in front of millions of people.

"Ralph sacrificed a lot so that you could be happy," Shank reminded her as Vanellope procrastinated following the BuzzzTube usher up to the balcony to be seated with TJ's uncles, who had arrived much earlier and were already settled down there. Shank herself had a seat in the front row below, with the Disney princesses. Vanellope badly wanted to sit there with them, but as the usher had already told her, all the seats were preassigned. "Now you have to make an effort and be happy for him. Make sure that you're smiling when he looks up at you."

"And what do I do if TJ looks up at me?" Vanellope thought to herself as the usher led her up the stairs. "Flip him off? I don't even have a middle finger. You can't have a middle finger if you've only got four…"

"I told you guys that making music and dance part of his school curriculum was a good idea," Private Markowski was saying to the others when Vanellope arrived.

"No one said it wasn't," Private Swift replied. "Oh, hi love," he greeted Vanellope as she took the seat next to Private Markowski. The usher began to pump the lever of the seat to raise it up so that Vanellope could see better. She would rather he'd left it as it was, because now she had a perfect, unobstructed view of the entire stage _and_ the audience below.

The marines had brought with them a hamper full of sandwiches, snacks, and drinks to enjoy before the show, which they offered Vanellope free access to.

"The sandwiches are cheese and pickle, cheese and tomato, bacon and tomato, cucumber and tomato, aaaaaaaaaaand grilled chicken with honey mustard," said Private Markowski as he rummaged through it and passed wrapped parcels to the others. "What can I get you? There's chips and cookies as well, and some nice fruit."

Vanellope shook her head. "No, thank you. I'm not hungry." She'd barely eaten all day. Her stomach was too tangled up with nerves. How ironic, that she was afflicted with something akin to stage fright when she wasn't even the one performing!

But that was exactly what was making her so nauseous. She wasn't the one performing. _It should have been me doing a livestream with Ralph. This should have been our night._

"Too bad, so sad, princess," hissed an insidious voice inside her head. "He wasn't enough for you, remember? You thought he was boring, remember? Now he's the internet's golden boy, and you're yesterday's news."

 _I never thought Ralph was boring,_ she argued with herself. _I thought Litwak's Arcade was boring._ A crowd of characters back in the aforementioned arcade were gathered in Felix's apartment, standing around, chatting, laughing, sipping drinks, and enjoying the snacks and goodies the Fix-Its and their children had prepared beforehand as they all waited for Ralph and TJ to take the stage.

On the large, rectangular TV screen, BuzzzTalk was playing, and Yesss was interviewing a supposedly famous internet psychiatrist whose name Felix didn't quite catch. Dr. Manatee? Dr. Mackerey? Dr. McMuffin? Whatever it was, she seemed like a real quick-smart gal.

"All of my patients gave their permission to have their stories printed in _Rewriting the Program,_ on the condition that their names were changed and the name of their game or website wasn't mentioned," the psychiatrist (Dr. McAvery?) said.

"So none of them felt exploited, or even misrepresented?" Yesss asked her.

"No, not at all. In fact, they were quite happy to be part of the project. Most of my patients feel as passionately as I do about the importance of bringing attention to, and combatting, the toxic environments the internet creates on a regular basis..."

"Ughhhhh! This is boring!" cried out Gloyd.

"Yeah! When are Ralph and TJ gonna be on?!" Swizzle demanded.

"Soon," Felix told his foster sons. "Patience is a virtue, aaaaaaaaand so is helping your old man bring out some more refreshments for our guests!"

" _Fiiiiiiiine."_ Gloyd and Swizzle followed Felix into the kitchen. Backstage at BuzzzTube, Ralph and TJ watched the interview on a TV screen above their heads as the wardrobe team made some last-minute adjustments and spruce-ups to their performance costumes.

"Privacy on the internet has become an almost inaccessible luxury, not a right, as it should be," Dr. McAfee was saying now. "And the fact that many of my patients feel constantly under the radar is what makes Firewall their go-to safe space from the NetUsers' abuse. For some, it's their only opportunity to escape—"

"She's got a point," Ralph thought to himself as a wardrobe assistant straightened his bowtie. "NetUsers sure do love poking their noses into people's business. Or else TJ and I wouldn't be doing a Q&A after our song."

He and TJ had met Dr. McAfee earlier, right before her interview began. The first thing he'd thought about the esteemed web psychiatrist was that she was Yesss's polar opposite in every way. She was mild and soft-spoken, articulate in her speech, and simply dressed in a tailored women's pantsuit, with her red hair pulled back into a practical low bun. Oh, and she was red all over from the hair down as well, admitting a slightly radiative glow that made Ralph think of the lava lamps from Nicelander Nolan's apartment.

She sat with her back straight and rigid and her hands clasped neatly in her lap as Yesss interviewed her. "She must have an iron rod for a spine," thought Ralph, who could never sit up straight in any chair ever, due to his bad posture and the fact that no chair had ever been custom-designed for him. _However,_ his sharp new suit had been made just for him, and he had been very, _very_ glad that he'd been wearing it instead of his usual scruffy, smelly day attire when he'd been introduced to the doctor. He was hoping he'd made a favourable first impression, at least in the looks department.

"I'm glad to see there are people who are still having fun being web celebrities," she'd said as she shook Ralph and TJ's hands.

"When it stops being fun, we'll come see ya," Ralph had joked back. The doctor had smiled at that. She had a warm, wise, indulgent smile, like an easygoing mother with wisecracking kids. Ralph didn't know why, but something about that smile had made his chest flutter. Maybe it was because women usually didn't smile at him unless they were making fun of him. Or maybe it was just pre-performance nerves.

"I'm reading your book, doctor. I'm really enjoying it—" TJ quickly corrected himself. "I mean, I'm not enjoying the bad things that happened to all your patients! What I meant to say was…"

"You appreciate my writing style and the learning experience you're receiving," Dr. McAfee finished for him.

TJ nodded relievedly. "Yes! Exactly!"

"Wow, Doc, _I'm_ glad to see there are people on the web who don't get offended by everything!" Ralph exclaimed. She gave him another smile, and the flutters doubled. They might have had the chance to triple if Maybee hadn't come over to announce that it was time for Dr. McAfee to get into place for her interview.

"Break a leg, you two. I'm looking forward to your song and dance number," she said as Maybee led her away.

"Same to you!" Ralph called after her. Then he realized that what he'd said was stupid, because Dr. McAfee wasn't doing a song and dance number. He facepalmed. "Awww, _shoot…"_

"Ha ha, real smooth, Ralph," teased TJ. "After this, let's go to Netflix so you can say 'You too' when the ticket booth girl tells you to enjoy your movie."

"Dr. McAfee must think I'm an idiot," Ralph thought a bit gloomily in the present as he watched Yesss begin to wrap up the interview. "A big, blockheaded, dancing circus ape."

In reality, Dr. McAfee thought no such thing of him, as she had the highest respect for people who did what they loved and made others happy while doing it. As she told Yesss, "By starting Firewall College, and taking in disciples of psychology, I'm hoping to offer the opportunity to reach out to others and provide more than just temporary, everyday comfort to those in need. Good therapists on the web are in short supply."

"Ugh! Tell me about it! Lord knows mine's run off his feet!" Yesss joked. The audience laughed.

"You two are on right after the commercial break," Maybee announced to Ralph and TJ. Both of them still had their eyes glued to the TV screen.

"Dr. McAfee's _Rewriting the Program_ is available for purchase on eBooks, Amazon, and Kindle," Yesss was now informing the audience. "And applications for Firewall College, which will begin classes this September, can be downloaded from Firewall College dot com or picked up on location at Dr. McAfee's clinic. Before we go, let's have one more round of applause for Dr. Cheryl McAfee—!"

Ralph began to clap with the audience, pulling away from the wardrobe assistant who was brushing down his sleeve. "Hey!" "Sorry!"

"Alright, Ralph and TJ, it's time to get into position!" Maybee prompted hurriedly. "Places, everyone! Places!"

"Did Ralph tell you that he and TJ are working on more songs?" Private Markowski was asking Vanellope up in the VIP balcony.

"No. They didn't." _They didn't tell me about this first one either. I'm not part of this act._

"TJ's _such_ a creative," Private Markowski gushed on as Vanellope tried, unsuccessfully, to block his voice out. "With his way with words and Ralph's voice, it's really a perfect match, like peanut butter and jelly!"

"You mean peanut butter and bacon," Vanellope corrected him. "Have you ever tried that combo? It's way better—" Her voice was drowned out as the lights suddenly dimmed and the orchestra began to play an introductory tune. Spotlights began to circle on the closed curtains concealing the big performance stage as well.

"Alright, people, this is it! The big number!" Yesss cried to her staff from behind the cameras. "We're going live in THREE…TWO… _ **ONE!"**_

The announcer's voice began, _"And noooooow, the moment you've all been waiting for!"_

" _ **EVERYONE, IT'S STARTING!"**_ Felix shouted. The partygoers scrambled frenziedly to position themselves in good viewing spots around the TV.

"This outta be good for a few cheap laughs," Gene whispered to Nicelander Norwood. He was looking forward to seeing Ralph mess this up somehow. The Nicelander's money was on the ungainly bad guy accidentally knocking a light over and setting the stage on fire, but he would settle for seeing him trip. And if Turbo's horrible little spawn tripped too, _that_ would just be the icing on the cake!

"— _it's the internet's favourite dynamite duo, performing live, just for you, their hit BuzzzTube single, 'Who Doesn't Love a Bad Guy?!'"_

"Dynamite Duo. Hmpth!" Vanellope muttered spitefully under her breath as she crossed her arms and sank down in her seat. TJ's uncles were sitting on the edges of theirs.

All over the world, Ralph and TJ's fans were getting online to witness the livestream. On the web, J.P. Spamley and Gord were settled down in front of their small TV with bowls of popcorn. Knowsmore had temporarily closed down shop so that he and his two good friends, Fun Bun and Puddles, could watch Ralph and TJ's performance while they sipped on milkshakes. In Slaughter Race, the characters, minus Shank, struggled in frustration with a beat-up old TV set showing only static.

"Come on, you piece of junk!" Felony cried as she pounded the failing appliance with her fist. It flickered several times before BuzzTube's channel appeared on the screen. _" HA!_ YES! We're in business!"

"Fifty bucks on ten million hearts!" Sheriff Woody called out to the crowd of OhMyDisney characters gathered around one of their jumbotrons to watch. "Any takers?!" At once characters started excitedly waving their arms and shouting out bets for how many likes the famous wrecker and his kid pal would get.

"You ready, kid?" Ralph asked TJ as he put on his top hat.

"I was born ready," TJ replied confidently as he donned his own and tipped it at his friend.

Ralph grinned. "Then let's razzle and dazzle 'em!"

" _It's the big ol' bad guy and his little best guy, Wreck-It Ralph AAAAAAAAAAAAND TJ!"_ The curtains opened to an elated round of applause, the spotlight shone on them, and the world's attention was all theirs. Now, all they had to do was sparkle.

"Hey, kid, you know what I heard a player say the other day?" Ralph asked TJ in his best cheesy musical voice.

"What'd they say?" TJ answered in his. "'Oh, no, I'm outta quarters! Now I gotta wait 'till next payday!'"

Ralph pretended to be outraged, pressing his fingers to his chest. "They said my game would be better without me in it!"

TJ made an exaggerative, dismissive gesture. "Aww, don't listen to _that_ half-wit! Their head is emptier than Felix's tool kit, because _who doesn't looooooooooove a bad guy?"_ TJ began to sing. The crowd began to cheer, and the hearts were already beginning to pour in, as well as adoring comments from TJ's fangirls. _"Who doesn't loooooooooove a bad guy? You're the best part of the game and that's no lie! Tell me, who doesn't looooooooooooove a bad guy?"_

" _They say we're no good, we bad eggs in the batch! Bad guys finish last, and diiiiiiiie!"_ Ralph sang as he and TJ began to dance and hop their way down the stairs. _"But the players will wait, for us to re-gen-er-ate, because who doesn't looooooooooove a bad guy?!"_

Much to Gene's extreme disappointment, Ralph wasn't tripping, or slipping, or breaking anything, or even messing up the lyrics. Ralph and TJ were singing and dancing like pros, tapping their feet, clicking their heels, jumping, swinging their arms and legs, sliding, whirling, doing moves and tricks with their top hats. Everyone else, on the other hand, was utterly delighted.

" _You can't pick a bone, with Bowser on his throne, because then where would Mario beeeeeeeee?!"_

" _A plumber with no life excepting unclogging the pipe, because no one kidnapped Princess Peeeeeeeeeeeach!"_

"Oh my land!" cried Felix, wide-eyed as he watched Ralph tumble TJ down his tilted arms right after TJ had done the same with his hat. TJ landed sprucely back onto the floor and he and Ralph resumed their tap dance.

"Alright, Ralph!" cried Tapper. "Way to cut a rug!"

"Wooo! Go TJ!" called out Champ from Xtreme Paintball, clapping his hands.

The jumbo screen behind the pair was playing clips of famous video game baddies in action that matched up with the lyrics. A gameplay of Sonic running, hitting a wall, and losing half a dozen rings accompanied _"I KNOOOOOOW Sonic's fast! But without Dr. Eggman, how long would he last?!"_ In Felix's apartment, Dr. Eggman sniggered and playfully punched Sonic in the shoulder. The hedgehog hero laughed good-naturedly about it.

" _A good guy needs a world to save!"_ TJ did a little springy dance to the words.

Ralph did his own to, _"A bad guy only needs to mis-be-have!"_

 _"Who doesn't looooooooooooove a bad guy?! Who doesn't looooooooooooove a bad guy?!"_ the Slaughter Race characters sang along back in their game, because they'd all memorized the lyrics. _"If you're cross with the boss, then why even try?! Oh, who doesn't loooooooooooooove a bad guy?!"_

 _"It's fun to get lost in a maze, on those lazy days, but let me point out a fact, my man!"_ sang the OhMyDisney crowd at their website. Most of them were from musical films. They couldn't resist.

 _"You can sign the dotted line of fun, to try to outrun, the ghost gang chasing Pac-ac-Man!"_ sang Woody and Buzz together, with their arms around each other's shoulders.

Knowsmore sang while snapping his fingers, _"And who was it who said, 'No more House of the Dead!'"_

Fun Bun and Puddles sang together, _"Whatcha gonna shoot if not a zombie in the head?!"_

J.P Spamley threw his head back and bellowed, _"Why don't you shoot for the STAAAAAAAAAAAARS instead?!"_

On all their screens, Ralph took a quarter out of his pocket and flipped it off his thumb at TJ. _"Well, only one game costs a quarter!"_

TJ caught it in his hand and pocketed it. _"Then call me a supporter!"_

" _Why go broke? Toss a bloke out of his tree trunk bed!"_ Ralph pointed his thumbs at himself as the jumbo screen showed a clip of his 8-bit self getting bulldozed out of his home. He gave a "Well, what can you do?" shrug as the audience howled with laughter. Then the music slowed, the lights darkened, the curtains closed on the screen, and the spotlight fell solely on him as he held his top hat to his chest and sang soulfully…

 _"My young friend, there are days, when it's hard to explain, how it feels to be villainized, to go without praise. There's no prize for the guys who rain on your paraaaaaaaade…"_

TJ popped up behind Ralph and swung himself onto what used to be Vanellope's spot, on his shoulder. "Um, hello? _You're the only reason there IS a game!"_ he sang as he knocked on Ralph's hat.

" _WOOOOAH-OH-OH! People don't understand, that in the pixelated land, it's the villains on whom you rely!"_ sang an energetic group of office workers in Japan as they watched the livestream on a projector in their meeting room.

" _You need a good boss to beat…"_ sang a trio of college students in New York watching it on a bench in the park.

" _A strong foe to unseat…"_ sang a group of fishermen on their boat in Greece.

" _You just can't complete with that perfect defeat!"_ sang a classroom of children in India around their teacher's computer.

" _Oh, who doesn't loooooooooove a bad guy?! Who doesn't loooooooooooove a bad guy?!"_ sang an entire video game store full of people in Canada watching on the owner's laptop. _"They're the best part of the game that you want to buy—!"_

" _Ohhhhhhh, who doesn't looooooooooove a bad guy?!"_ Ralph and TJ gestured dramatically to the curtains behind them, which quickly swept open to reveal what Vanellope quickly realized was Yesss's "really great idea." Everyone gasped.

The background dancers now dancing away were all bad guys. Every single one. Final bosses, minor bosses, henchmen, and common enemies, all tap-dancing, twirling, jumping, and waving in their arms in synchronization with Ralph and TJ and looking like they were having the time of their lives.

In Felix's apartment, all the Bad Anon members present looked like they were going to cry. Sorceress was covering her mouth with her hands. Clyde wasn't blinking.

"I didn't think I would live to see anything like this," a sniffling Zangief confessed. In the BuzzzTube comments section, the viewers were going bananas.

" _IT'S SANS AND PAPYRUS OH MY GOD."_

" _Beebop and Rocksteady! I am SCREAMING!"_

" _I see my boy Reno!"_

" _Sephiroth!"_

" _Psycho Mantis!"_

" _It's Bendy!"_

" _PYRMAID HEAD!"_

" _Is that Witch from Left 4 Dead 2?!"_

" _Holy shit! Kazumi and Poison! This is the best day of my life!"_

" _Bowser's hiring out his army lol!"_

" _Darth Vader's missing some troopers!"_

" _FRIEZA FRIEZA FRIEZA!"_

" _Move over Infinity War, this is the best crossover in history!"_

Yesss had sent out a general invitation to all the most popular online games, inviting bad guys to come audition and be part of Ralph and TJ's performance. The number that had turned up had been astounding, but they could only hire so many, and they had to be ones that the viewers would instantly recognize, and also ones that could be placed strategically on the stairs and raised platforms.

Ralph and the taller bad guys on the left side of the stage froze in a pose while TJ and the shorter ones on the right danced their way through their own special routine. They ended in their own pose, and stayed unmoving that way while Ralph and the big boys (and gals) did _their_ dance. The views and likes were gushing in at a mind-boggling, breakneck rate. The BuzzzTube staff had never seen anything like it.

"Ohhhhhhh, please don't let the server crash, please don't let the server crash," Maybee whispered worriedly.

"C'mooooooooooon, baby, hang in there!" cried Yesss as she clenched her fists.

On stage, the curtains once again closed on the crowd-pleasing cameos as they waved goodbye to the audience and viewers. Ralph and TJ were back to dancing on their own again, and they weren't finished yet.

" _Having a friend like Ralph, is always top shelf, and on that I'll never be shy!"_ TJ was singing now. Behind them, the screen was now playing only clips of Fix-It Felix Jr., with 8-bit Ralph destroying the Niceland building.

Ralph sang, _"When it's time to wreck…"_ He and TJ both mimed punching a wall. "… _it's all hands on deck!"_ Jazz hands.

TJ sang, " _And there's nobody better in re-tro-spect!"_

Ralph briefly stopped dancing and pretended to wipe a touched tear from his eye. _"Aw, kid you're gonna make me fall and break my neck!"_

" _I don't mean to make you crrrrrrrrrry!"_ TJ went on as Ralph rejoined him in the dance. _"I'm just sayin,' 'cause the players keep on playin', and when they keep on playin' you keep on slayin', that who doesn't loooooove—!"_

Ralph took over. _"Oh, who doesn't looooooooooooooove—!"_

Then they ended the number together. _"Oh, who doesn't_ _ **LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE**_ _—"_ Ralph and TJ finished with a final set of tap steps as the orchestra blared the final notes. They struck their last poses, after expertly flipping and catching their top hats before hoisting them back onto their heads. _**"—a BAD GUY?!"**_

The crowd erupted in rapturous applause, which quickly turned into a standing ovation. TJ's marine uncles practically jumped out of their seats. Vanellope was nearly knocked off hers by an overexcited Private Markowski bumping her with his hip.

"That's our _BABY!_ That's our TJ!" he shouted down as he clapped exuberantly.

Ralph and TJ stepped to the front of the stage and made their bows as the roaring crowd threw flowers and coins and blew kisses at them. The curtains reopened, and all the backup dancers came out to make their bows with the main duo as well. Vanellope, following Shank's instructions, forced herself to smile when Ralph's eyes looked up and met hers, though she could feel her knees shaking beneath her and her hands shook uncontrollably as she clapped them. Her eyes dampened. _You did it, Ralph, You're a star._ Burning bright, and a million miles out of her reach.

Back at Litwak's Arcade, the viewing party was going wild, with everyone, save the ones who were still in shock from seeing Wreck-It Ralph and Turbo Junior as Broadway stars, jumping around and cheering.

"GOOD JOB, brother!" Felix exclaimed, clapping his hands so hard that they were starting to hurt. Sergeant Calhoun brought her fingers to her mouth and whistled.

"Okay, that was _really_ good," Taffyta admitted to the others as they clapped.

"That was AMAZING!" Candlehead cried, bringing her hands to her face. Her eyes looked ready to pop out of her head.

Nicelander Lucy, still blinking the disbelief from her own eyes, slowly turned to the other Nicelanders and asked, "Did, uhhhh, anyone know Ralph could sing and dance like that?"

Nicelander Mary slowly shook her head. She was still so stunned that she couldn't remember what year it was. "I…I honestly didn't."

"It wasn't that great," muttered Gene enviously. He threw his head back and downed the rest of his drink in one go. Then he poured himself another one and downed that too, as fast as he could. It was plainly clear that he was planning on getting very, _very_ drunk that night.

"Do you guys think Turbo saw this?" Wynchel whispered to his coworkers in a corner as they clapped as well.

"I don't know. Do they have TVs in internet jails?" Duncan asked.

"I _hope_ Turbo saw this," Beard Papa remarked, imagining with relish Turbo's reaction at watching his kid achieve the fame and acclaim he'd wanted so badly for himself.

" _ **WE NAILED IT!"**_ TJ flew into Ralph's arms backstage and hugged him tight as Ralph spun around in pure joy with his friend and BuzzzTube partner in his arms, both of them half-laughing and half-crying, because the performance had gone _perfectly,_ not a single line messed up, not a single misstep or accident!

It wasn't long before Yesss joined in on their celebrating. "You two were _sensational!"_ she cried, as Ralph pulled her into the happy embrace. "Take _that,_ YouTube! HA HA!"

It wasn't long before TJ's uncles were brought backstage by a stage hand, and TJ flew straight to them for a crushing, overjoyed group hug. "Buddy, we're so proud of you!" "Sooooooooooooo proud of you!" "You were a knockout out there!" "You were fantastic!" "I couldn't believe my eyes!" "I-I'm so happy, I'm gonna cry!"

Vanellope, who'd been brought backstage as well, hung back, watching TJ be showered with praise and love by his guardians as her innards twisted into pretzels inside of her. She felt like throwing up, and tried to leave, but then Ralph spotted her and dashed over to scoop her up in _his_ arms.

"Kid!" He squashed her to his chest before raising her up above his head and twirling around with her. "Wasn't that great?! Didn't I tell ya it was gonna be one heck of a show?! Did you love it?!"

"Y-Yes, Ralph, I loved it. Can you p-please put me down?" She really was going to throw up if Ralph continued on like this. Luckily, she was saved when Maybee and a group of excited BuzzzTube employees came dashing in with their clipboards waving.

" _ **FORTY MILLION HEARTS!"**_ he shouted at the top of his lungs. **"BUZZZTUBE'S NEW RECORD FOR A SINGLE VIDEO!"**

" _ **YES! YES! YES! YES!"**_ Yesss was like a sugar-high child as she jumped around, pumping her arms and screaming her own name as everyone else cheered and shouted as well. Ralph put Vanellope down so he could hug TJ again, and Vanellope sensed with a sinking feeling that this action alone set the pattern for what her life was going to be like from then on. Getting the quick hug while TJ got the long one. Getting lowered down while TJ got raised up. Being an afterthought while TJ came up with all the ideas. And being worth only half a heart when TJ was worth forty million of them.

* * *

It was now time for Ralph and TJ's Q&A. "After that stint, this is going to be a _breeze,"_ Ralph remarked, cracking his knuckles and rolling his stiff shoulders. "Let do this!"

A large couch was brought out for Ralph, and TJ took the armchair Dr. McAfee had previously occupied as the NetUsers formed a line in front of a microphone on a raised platform.

"Ralph and TJ are now ready for your questions!" announced Yesss cheerily. "Before we begin, BuzzzTube would like to once again remind all viewers that 'Who Doesn't Love a Bad Guy?' is now available for purchase on iTunes for a dollar twenty-nine per download! The link is in the description below. Now, let's get started!"

"I have a question for Ralph," the first NetUser, a blue-haired male, began. "How come TJ wasn't in any of your old videos?"

"Well, that's easy. We hadn't met yet." _He hadn't been born yet._

"This question's for TJ," said the next NetUser, a redheaded male with headphones. "What do your initials stand for?"

TJ was prepared for this one. "Tomato juice," he joked. Ralph and Yesss laughed. "No, for real, it's not that. For _very_ private reasons, I actually can't tell you. Feel free to leave your guesses in the comments, though."

At once the viewers and subscribers did just that, flooding the comments section with contenders for TJ's mysterious name. Some were reasonable enough (Tiny Jim, Timmy Jive, Travis Jones). Others were just plain ridiculous (Traction Jackson, Tossin' Joss, Twiggy Jiggy). Others were just trolling (Toilet Jokes, Toe Jam, Thomas Jefferson, Tyrion Jaime).

Ralph leaned over to whisper to TJ, "I like Twiggy Jiggy. Let's go with that one." TJ snickered.

No one guessed Turbo Junior, though one viewer came close with "Turbo Jet," and both TJ's and Ralph's hearts skipped a beat when they did. Luckily, another NetUser, a brunette, dark-skinned female with glasses, was stepping forward to steer them back on track.

"This question's for Ralph. Do you have a girlfriend?" she asked, with a little giggle.

" _Wooooooooooooooooooo!"_ went the crowd, and Yesss, and TJ, who comically waggled his eyebrows and nudged Ralph.

"Do I _look_ like I have a girlfriend?" Ralph joked, gesturing to all of himself. The crowd laughed with him.

"He's married to his job," added TJ. "Sorry, ladies. Loving a bad guy doesn't mean you get to date one!"

The next NetUser to step forward was a blonde female in a sweatshirt. "This question's for both Ralph and TJ. What happened to the Zoom Challenge video?" she asked. "My three-year-old son really liked that one. Why did you take it down?"

"Is he there with you? Hiya, little buddy!" Ralph waved. In front of the NetUser's computer screen, the toddler in his mother's lap bounced up and down ecstatically and waved back. "I'm really glad you liked it! Sorry we had to take it down!"

"But why _did_ you take it down?" the NetUser asked again.

"We, uh, misappropriated a prop," TJ said.

"A prop?!" Vanellope cried aloud on the sidelines. He was calling her beloved Sugar Rushian kart _a prop?!_

"Vanellope, shhhhhhhhhh. We're on a production set," Shank reminded her gently as she placed a hand on her shoulder. But Vanellope wasn't listening. She was fuming.

"He's talking about the car he drove," Ralph explained. "You see, it doesn't belong to us, and we didn't have permission to use it in a video. It actually belongs to—"

"—my best friend, Vanellope von Schweetz," Vanellope thought pleadingly. "Come on, Ralph, say it! Say it, say it, say it! My best friend Vanellope! Please, please, _please_ say it!"

"—another friend of mine," Ralph finished. Vanellope gasped. Another friend? _Another friend?_ After all their years together, after all they'd been through, after all they'd meant to each other, she was now just _another friend?_

" _OKAY! THAT DOES IT!"_ She broke free from Shank's restraining grasp and ran forward to the front of the line.

"Vanellope, no! Come back here!" Shank called out, but it was no use.

Shoving aside the NetUser at front stepping forward for their turn, Vanellope claimed the microphone for herself and spoke venomously into it. "Hi. I've got a question for _Ralph._ "

Felix's apartment went silent with shock at Vanellope's sudden appearance on screen. The racers were particularly taken aback. This was the first time they'd seen Vanellope since she'd left them.

"Oh, no, Vanellope. _Don't,"_ Felix pleaded in a whisper.

Maybee swiftly appeared and, taking Vanellope by the shoulders, tried gently but firmly to lead her away from the microphone, "Vanellope, dear, this is reeeeeeeeally not the best time…"

"Hands off the merchandise!" Vanellope shouted at him as she shook him off and glitched. She spun back to the microphone and cleared her throat. "Like I said, I have a question for Ralph. Is TJ your best friend?"

Felix and Calhoun's mouths dropped open, as did the mouths of the racers and many other partygoers. In Knowsmore's stand, Puddles dropped his milkshake, and in Slaughter Race the characters all facepalmed and groaned, as their leader Shank was doing at the scene of the crime.

"Ohhhhh, man, I love it when there's drama on these shows!" Spamley said to Gord in their home. He began pumping his fist up and down _. "Jer-ry! Jer-ry! Jer-ry!"_

For what felt like the longest time, Ralph just stared at Vanellope, looking as though his brain had been short-circuited. He was that stupefied by her crudeness and by the question itself. But then, his expression changed to raw rage, and he answered, with a single striking word.

"Yes."

Vanellope looked as if she'd been slapped. Shank covered her mouth with her hand. Felix buried his face in both of his and muttered, "No, no, no, no…" while his Sergeant Calhoun sighed and shook her head. The crowd went deathly quiet, as did many viewers, both on the web and behind their screens.

"Cut to commercial break," Yesss hissed at an assistant. She turned back to the camera with a painfully forced smile and clapped her hands together. "Alright, now it's time for another word from our sponsors! We'll be riiiiiiiiight back!"

As soon as the advertisements began to play, Ralph was out of his seat and stomping his way infuriatingly down the stage steps to Vanellope, who was waiting for him with her arms crossed defiantly across her chest and her face still blazing with hurt.

"Kid," he growled. "We need to talk. _Now."_

Vanellope followed Ralph into his dressing room, where he yanked the door shut behind them. "Vanellope, do you mind telling me _what the heck_ that was about?!"

"It's a Q&A, isn't it?!" Vanellope snapped back. "That was the 'Q' part."

"That was a load of bullroar! What do you mean, is TJ my best friend?! That's like asking if I like Tappers or BurgerTime better, because I can't choose _one!"_

"Yes, you can! Choose _me,_ the best friend you've had for seven years!" Vanellope cried.

"You chose Shank over me after knowing her for less than a day!" Ralph fired back. "I can have a second best friend too!"

"Yeah, well, I sure don't feel like your first best friend anymore! Nobody believes me when I say I'm your best friend! They think I'm some stalker fan of yours, making up stuff! Everyone only sees you with TJ! I'm not in any of your videos!"

"You never asked to be in any of our videos!"

"I shouldn't have to ask!"

"Oh, for the love of—!" Ralph placed his hands on his hips. "Alright. I see how it is now. _You're_ allowed to bail out on Sugar Rush and on Litwak's to join Shank's posse, joyride around racing purgatory, and have slumber parties with the Disney princesses, but _I'm_ not allowed to have fun and make videos and do live shows with _my_ new pal. Hmmmmmmmm. Something doesn't quite add up there, kid."

He was right, and Vanellope knew he was right, which was why she could think of nothing else to retort with except, "But why does your new pal have to be _him?"_

Anyone else. Anyone else except Turbo's son would have been better. She would have even welcomed Taffyta as Ralph's friend if it meant not having to see Turbo's face everywhere, all the time.

"Because he's the one who's around, and he's the one I'm making good things happen with," Ralph answered sharply. "Remember when you said to me a year ago that my friendship wasn't enough for you? Yeah, you remember it. I see it on your face. Well…maybe your friendship's not enough for me anymore, either. Maybe I need something else in my life besides waiting around for you to call me. Did you ever consider that?"

"Ralph—" Vanellope began, but she was interrupted by a BuzzzTube stage hand, who knocked urgently on the door to inform Ralph that the commercial break was ending soon and that he needed to get back on stage.

"I'll be out in a sec," Ralph answered. He turned back to Vanellope. "Don't bother coming to the afterparty if you're not going to show any self-control. And you'd better apologize to TJ for embarrassing him like that!"

"I won't!" Vanellope spat.

"Then go home!"

"Fine!"

" _Fine!"_ Ralph slammed the door behind him as he left, and Vanellope stayed in her spot and cried until the same stagehand brought her Shank, who silently took her by the hand and led her out of the dressing room and out of BuzzzTube.

"You okay?" TJ asked Ralph as the wrecker settled back down onto his seat. The hybrid was relieved to see Vanellope had smartened up for once and made herself scarce.

"Yup. Never been better. Why do you ask?" TJ glanced up at the comments on the screen above their heads.

" _And the Oscar for dumbest question goes to…"_

" _lol at Ralph's jealous fangirl. what a reject."_

" _Who's the ugly little chipmunk and how'd she escape from the zoo?"_

" _Idiot. Didn't she see the 'You've got a Friend in Me' video? Of course Ralph and TJ are best friends!"_

TJ raised his eyebrows and sipped from his mug.

"Too bad, so sad, princess," he thought, as Yesss welcomed the viewers back to the show and reopened the floor to fan questions. She, as well as everyone else, seemed determined to pretend that the Vanellope incident hadn't happened. "Looks like your days of wearing the crown are over."

Shank was already driving a sulky Vanellope back to their game, where Vanellope would face a string of stern but well-intentioned lectures as well as the immense disappointment of the Slaughter Race characters, who'd been hoping to do a collaboration music video with Ralph and TJ sometime soon. She'd just spoiled their chances of that, as well of her own chance of ever guest-starring on their channel, as TJ could now safely get away with refusing to work with her on account of her being such an intolerable diva, and for being such a despicable friend to his show partner as well.

* * *

 **End of Chapter**

* * *

I swear to God, I love Vanellope, and I promise I'm putting her through hell for a good reason (much-needed character development). Please leave reviews!


	6. Chapter 6

Thank you so much for the raving reviews for my last chapter. The reception this fic is getting is really exciting!

The song TJ and Ralph are singing in their first scene here is "Those Magic Changes" from Grease: The Musical, originally sung by Sha-Na-Na. I suggest listening to it once before reading this chapter. Also, Stephanie, Mr. Litwak's employee, is Moppet Girl from the first film.

One more thing. For all of you who have been asking me about the "tragedy" from the summary, it's coming. I promise that it's coming, probably in a few more chapters or so, so bear with me.

* * *

 **Rewriting the Program:** **Chapter Six  
Shining Stars and Flashing Signs**

* * *

Slaughter Race was going through a bit of a slow stretch, and the characters took full advantage of the free time to do some much-needed maintenance on their rides. They gathered in a warehouse with plenty of room, and left a radio playing while they went at it.

" _Join us later for further discussion on the approaching one-year anniversary of Tumblr's tragic tumble from social media grace, though it can and will be argued that it had none to start with. But now, here's the latest from Ralph and TJ! It's 'Gamer Girl' on CPM FM…"_

"Turn it up! Turn it up!" Little Debbie shouted excitedly as the fast-paced jazzy tune started to play.

" _Oooooooooo, the little lady's got some quarters to spend!"_ Ralph's sang out of the box. _"She's out and about, lookin' for a close friend! Just shimmy shimmy shimmy, down my way, because baby baby, I've got a game to play—!"_

" _Come on over here, and I'll help you unwiiiiiiiiind!"_ Pyro sang along as he dramatically slid on his knees towards Little Debbie, hopped back up onto his feet, and pulled her into his arms as the other characters laughed and clapped approvingly.

" _Oh, she's a gamer girl!"_ TJ joined in the chorus with Ralph as Pyro and Little Debbie swing-danced around the warehouse. _"Gonna give every game a whirl! But you know her favorite pastime, is playing games with me! Oh, she's the high score queen, dancin' to the top of every screen! She'll leave her initials, and broken hearts behiiiiiiiiind—"_

"Guys, Little V is coming!" someone up near one of the high windows shouted out. At once Felony switched the radio station to one that played strictly hard rock music. Pyro and Little Debbie stopped dancing and quickly resumed their previous car-related tasks as a sullen-faced Vanellope pushed open the door and stepped in.

The young racer didn't say a word to anyone, or even met anyone's eyes, as she made her way over to a shelf, handpicked a few tools and small parts, and exited the building as swiftly as she'd entered it, glitching like a busted Christmas light and aggressively kicking the door shut behind her. Her colleagues, as soon as they were certain she was far out of earshot, looked at each other, sighed, and shook their heads.

"She's really not taking it well, is she?" Little Debbie said.

"This is Only Child Syndrome," Butcher Boy remarked. "A child who's ill-adjusted to sharing a parent's attention and, therefore, reacting negatively to the presence of a second dependant. I've been reading Dr. McAfee's _Rewriting the Program,_ and she says it often happens to a lot of game protagonists when upgrades add new characters that they have to share their screen time with. What she recommends is that the characters, both old and new, engage in teamwork-building activities to generate communication, trust, and understanding."

"Ha! Small chance of that!" exclaimed Pyro. "It took Shank _three days_ to get her to apologize to TJ over the phone! What makes you think any of us are going to get them together to do an egg drop project or something?"

"Have you guys noticed how much she's glitching and twitching lately?" asked Felony.

Little Debbie nodded. "Just yesterday she nearly crashed her car because a new player's username was badboysRalphandTJ26."

"Not to mention how she exploded over that Korean acapella group's cover of 'Who Doesn't Love a Bad Guy?' And that was one of the really good ones," pointed out Butcher Boy. "That 'Let's Play' vlogger who covered it with his fiancée needed to get his piano tuned."

"I like the one that retired lounge singer did with his grandson," Little Debbie said. "That was cute."

"Oh! Oh! And that elementary school class in Brooklyn! The ones who wore the little costumes!" Pyro cried. "That one little guy dressed as Sonic was _adorable!"_

" _My_ personal favorite cover is those two girls from that London performing arts school who dressed up as Ralph and TJ for their talent show," Butcher Boy said. "Excellent harmonization and choreography. There's some strong young talent there."

"Guys, focus! What are we going to do about Little V?" Felony demanded. "Something has to be done. She can't go on like this. She's making herself sick over something she can't control."

The others fully agreed, but Vanellope wasn't open to any of their suggestions when they were put on the table. No, she didn't want to talk about it. No, she didn't want to go see a therapist. No, she didn't want to go on a vacation either, or on a spiritually revitalizing yoga retreat. What she wanted was for Ralph and TJ's fifteen minutes of fame to come to an end so she could finally have some peace again. She was sick of seeing their names and faces everywhere and she was sick of their songs, which were selling so well on iTunes that there was now a special six-person "Ralph and TJ" booth where the NetUsers could line up to download them.

One NetUser who had happily downloaded every single one of Ralph and TJ's songs was listening to them on her iPhone as she made her usual twenty-minute walk to work. The impressive new digital sign that Mr. Litwak had ordered was flashing invitingly as she approached, and she smiled at it.

"It looks _really_ cool," she thought. "And I don't have to climb the ladder anymore! Thank God!"

She was early, as were a group of elementary school kids gathered around the front doors of the arcade. "Sorry, guys, I don't have the key. Mr. Litwak does," she said. "He'll be here soon."

"First dibs on Wreck-It Ralph!" cried one of the kids quickly.

"I call next game!" cried another.

"The game's actually called Fix-It Felix Jr.," a third kid corrected them, pushing up her glasses. "Ralph's the bad guy. Felix is the good guy."

"Felix _sucks,"_ spat the fourth kid, who was playing on his phone. "Why isn't there a game where you can play as Ralph?"

"He wouldn't be the bad guy, then," the brainy girl with glasses pointed out as Mr. Litwak pulled into the parking lot with his car. "What _I'm_ wondering is why isn't there a game with TJ in it!"

"Mornin', Stephanie," Mr. Litwak greeted his prompt teenage employee warmly when he reached the front doors.

"Mornin', Mr. Litwak," Stephanie greeted him back. She noticed that he looked rather tired, but then again, what else could you expect from someone who'd essentially run a playground for rude, sugar-high kids for nearly four decades?

"Hey, Mr. Litwak," one of the kids began. "Is there a game with Ralph and TJ in it? Do you know?"

Mr. Litwak blinked. "Ralph and TJ? Who are Ralph and TJ?"

" _Who are Ralph and TJ?!"_ the kids cried disbelievingly. Was the arcade owner living under a _rock?_

"They're from these super popular animated videos from BuzzzTube," Stephanie told Mr. Litwak. "I can show you when we get inside."

"Please do," Mr. Litwak said as he rummaged in his pocket for his keys. "I feel more and more out of the loop every day." It came from not having kids of his own around to explain things to him. He didn't even know what the heck BuzzzTube was!

"They sing too," Stephanie added. "And they're really, _really_ good. Listen." She pulled the earbuds cord out of her phone and pressed play so that Mr. Litwak could hear Ralph and TJ on speaker.

" _What's that playing on the ra-di-o?"_ Ralph sang, while casually lounging on his brick pile in Fix-It Felix Jr. One hand held his phone between two fingers while the other was tucked behind his head, substituting for a cushion. _"Why do I start swayin' to and fro?"_

" _I have never heard that song before,"_ TJ sang back through the phone speaker. He was in Hero's Duty, up to his elbows in dish water as he helped his marine uncles clean up after breakfast. His own phone was sitting on a shelf right above his head. _"But if I don't hear it anymore…"_

Now it was Ralph's turn. _"It's still familiar to me, sends a thrill right through me, 'cause those chords remind me of the night that I first fell in love to…"_

" _Those magic chaaaaaaaaanges…"_ TJ sang back. _"My heart arraaaaaaaanges…"_

" _A MELODYYYYYYYYYYYYYY,"_ Ralph sang in his hammiest voice, while TJ's uncles started snickering and TJ himself held back a laugh. "That's never the same, a _MELODYYYYYYYYYYY, that's calling your name, it begs you PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE, come back to me…"_

" _Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease return to me, don't go away again, or make them play again! The music I wanna hear, as once again, you whisper in my EEEEEEEEEEAR!"_ TJ sang in his own best hammy voice. _"Ohhhhhhhhh my daaaaaaaaaarling, a-ha-ha!"_

"Wooo! Sing it, TJ!" called out Private Markowski proudly as he stacked clean plates in the cupboard while TJ hit the high notes during the _"Hoooooooo, ho HOOOOO hoo hoo hoo hoooooo!"_ part.

" _I'll be waiting by the ra-di-o,"_ sang the original singer's voice from Vanellope's car radio in Slaughter Race as she rested her head on the steering wheel, fighting off a creeping headache and trying to psyche herself up for the day's races, though all she really wanted to do was go back to bed and wrap herself up in her blankets. _"You'll come back to me some day, I know. Been so lonesome since our last goodbye…"_

" _But I'm singing as I CRY-IY-IY!"_ sang Ralph passionately as he sat up on the bricks, clenching his free fist. _"While the bass is sounding! While the drums are pounding! Beatings of my broken heart will rise to first place on the charts!"_ He dramatically pointed upwards at "first place."

" _Ohhhh, my heart arraaaaaaaaaaages…"_ sang Vanellope's radio as she held her half of the cookie medal mournfully in her hands. " _Ohhhh, those magic chaaaaaaaaaaaanges…"_

" _Ooooooooooooh, ooooooooooooooh, oooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooh, ooooooh yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah!"_ sang Ralph and TJ together in perfect harmony, with Ralph now on his feet for the big finish. _"Oooooooooo HOO HOO ooooooo HOO HOO_ _ **HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!**_ _Cha cha cha!"_

Though they were in separate games, Ralph and TJ did the exact same little dance with their hips at the "Cha cha cha!" part. TJ's uncles cheered. Ralph himself heard clapping above his head, and when he looked up, it was Felix and the Nicelanders, applauding his performance from their windows. He hadn't even realized they were watching.

Ralph gave them a theatrical, sweeping bow. "You'd better sing that one at Tappers tonight, brother!" Felix called down.

"I can't!" Ralph called back. "That song's from the wrong time period! It doesn't match the aesthetic Tappers is going for now!"

"Awww, who _cares?!"_ Nicelander Lucy cried. "We're requesting it!"

"Yeah. She's right. Who cares?" said TJ's voice from the phone speaker. "Let's add it to the lineup. Anything from Grease is always a big crowd-pleaser."

" _That_ is very true. And we gotta give the people what they want," Ralph said. At that moment, Mr. Litwak unlocked the front door and he and Stephanie stepped inside first before the kids ran in after them. Immediately, they all booked it to Fix-It Felix Jr. "Uh oh. We got customers. I gotta go, kid. See you tonight at Tappers! We're gonna bring down the house!"

"With your fists or with our music?" TJ joked. Ralph laughed and hung up after they quickly exchanged goodbyes. After that, he only had enough time for one good stretch before the first player started eagerly shoving quarters in. The others, rather than occupy themselves with the other games, simply watched their friend play as they waited for their turn with the one game that had Ralph in it.

Ralph's head was full of songs all day, and he impatiently counted down the hours and minutes until Litwak's closed. Keeping in character and looking angry for the players was a real struggle. He wanted to sing so badly, he was going to explode!

Stephanie, one of Mr. Litwak's employees, the petite blonde one who Ralph remembered was once a frequent player as a kid (they grew up _so fast_ ) was quietly singing his and TJ's first song under her breath when she came around with a microfiber cloth to wipe some fingerprints off the screen.

" _I knoooooooooow Sonic's fast, but without Dr. Eggman, how long can he last? A good guy needs a world to save…"_

" _A bad guy only needs to mis-be-have!"_ Ralph sang back, without thinking.

Stephanie blinked. "Huh?" She looked around in confusion, looking for the source of the would-be duetter.

"Oh, shoot," Ralph thought, quickly hiding behind one of the bulldozers before she could spot him. "Me and my big mouth!"

Stephanie shrugged and continued on to the next console, picking up the song from where she had left off. _"Who doesn't loooooooooove a bad guy? Who doesn't looooooooooooove—"_

"Careful, Ralph," Felix warned his co-worker during a quick coffee break between gameplays, as they sat on the brick pile, sipping from their mugs. "Remember, showtime is _after_ quittin' time."

"I know, I know. That was just a stupid slipup. It won't happen again," Ralph promised. "But _sweet mother hubbard,_ ever since I've started singing professionally, I've felt like a whole new man!"

"You certainly look like one!" Felix retaliated with a cheery smile. "I haven't seen you this happy since—!" He paused, and lost the smile. He was going to say "since Vanellope was here" but by the way Ralph's face hardened it seemed best not to finish that sentence.

Though Vanellope had dutifully apologized from her bad behaviour on BuzzzTalk, Ralph was still cross with her for putting him on the spot in front of millions of viewers, a grievance that Felix found reasonable enough, since he himself had seen how far Ralph had (once) been willing to go to make sure Vanellope was kept entertained and happy all the time back when she was still living at Litwak's. The fact that Vanellope seemed unwilling to put forth the same effort for him in return was, to Felix, very disappointing. He'd expected better from her. They all had.

"Ahem." Felix cleared his throat. "You seem really, really happy, Ralph. Really, you do."

"I owe it all to TJ," Ralph was saying now, forcefully pushing all thoughts of Vanellope to the sidelines. "He kept on sayin', 'Let's do a singing video,' 'Let's do a singing video.' And I kept on putting it off until I lost that bet…"

"What _was_ that bet, by the way?" Felix asked. "If you don't mind me asking?"

"You know how Surge always stops me when I go in and out of Game Central?" Ralph began. "Well, TJ bet me that he could make the Surge _stop_ stopping me. I told him, 'No way, kid. He's like a bad cold you can't shake off,' but TJ did it!"

TJ called it the "No Homo Maneuver" and he tried it, successfully, on Surge when he and Ralph were stopped outside of Xtreme Paintball after visiting their friends there and playing a few rounds.

"Surge, can I ask _you_ a question?" TJ had asked after the usual interrogation, during which he and Ralph have given the least serious answers they could think of, including outrageously fake names (TJ, despite the Surge Protector knowing otherwise, insisted on his initials standing for Twiggy Jiggy when the Surge wanted verification). "How come you always stop Ralph? Is it because he's a bad guy, or because you have a thing for him?"

" _What?!"_ the Surge had cried while Ralph snorted behind his hands.

"Because if it's the latter," TJ went on. "You should be more open with your feelings if you want results. Ralph here's not so good with subtle signals."

"Now you listen here, young man! Do you think the security of this arcade is _a joke?!"_ the outraged Surge Protector had demanded. "Your _friend_ here frequently poses the risk of cross-contamination by smuggling fruit with him between games!"

"Look, Surge, if you want Ralph to show you his cherries _that badly—"_ This did Ralph in, and he had to go to a corner to laugh while it took the Surge Protector a full five seconds to catch the double entrende. If the blue security officer could have turned bright red, he would have at that moment.

They'd waited a week after that to see if the Surge Protector would stop Ralph again. When he didn't, TJ declared victory. "We're doing a singing video! It's happening!" And boy, did it _happen!_

"I'm tellin' ya, Felix, the kid's a wunderkind. There's nothing he can't do!"

"But he's not really a kid anymore though, is he?" Felix pointed out. It was true, TJ had grown up quite a bit since the killer, record-breaking BuzzzTube performance. He was taller now, and his babyish face had thinned out. His voice had deepened slightly too, though fortunately this improved his singing rather than hindered it. He was, in every aspect, a teenager, and his uncles were now allowing him to drink root beer, though as they'd told Ralph _very clearly,_ only one root beer per night was the limit.

"He's still a kid to me," Ralph said. Then he added, for good measure. "He'll always be a kid to me, even when he's all grown up."

In Hero's Duty, TJ, despite being an internationally acclaimed BuzzzTuber and musician, still had the responsibilities of a typical teen, and had to clean his room. However, he was making use of the mop as a prop for improvised rehearsal of one of his and Ralph's songs. He danced and mopped his way from one end of the floor to the other, shaking his hips and singing into the end of the stick while, on the other side of the game, his uncles were busy killing Cy-Bugs and saving humanity.

" _Good guys like to swing! And bad guys like to swing! Oh play-er, play-er, talk to me, why not tête-à-tête with an NPC?!"_ TJ sang as he passed the stick between his hands in time to the song. _"Oh, the good guys like to swing, and the bad guys loooooooove to swing, so why don't you just, give the buttons a rest, and make the swing your thing—!"_

TJ was stopped in his tracks as a sudden, griping wave of nausea came over him, and he dropped the mop to throw his hands over his mouth. Miraculously, he made it to the tiny toilet-and-sink bathroom adjoining his room, where he expelled the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl.

"I must have had too many pancakes at breakfast," he thought to himself as he flushed it down and wiped his mouth on a towel. He then reached out for the mouthwash. "Or maybe I just have a bug."

Luckily, it didn't seem serious, as he already felt better. It was going to take a lot more than an upset stomach to stop him from performing with Ralph that night!

During her lunch break, Stephanie went into Mr. Litwak's office and showed him how to set up a BuzzzTube account. "So people make money by making these videos?" Mr. Litwak asked curiously.

"Some people make _tons_ of money making these videos," Stephanie elaborated. "But you need a really special talent, or you just need to be really weird." She clicked on the mouse. "Okay, so here's 'Who Doesn't Love a Bad Guy—'"

"Well, I'll be!" Mr. Litwak exclaimed delightedly as the video began to play. "It's Wreck-It Ralph!"

"I know, right?! Isn't it cool?! The animation is _incredible._ It looks so real!" She then showed him the basics, such as how to subscribe to channels, leave hearts, post a comment, or directly message the makers of the videos. "Except 'Ralph and TJ' won't reply to any of their messages or comments. They never do. It's part of the whole mystery around where the videos come from."

When Stephanie left Mr. Litwak's office to step outside the arcade to eat her lunch on a bench, she caught a whiff of the hot dogs by the stand parked nearby and was suddenly overwhelmed with an intense craving for one. _What the heck? I don't even like hot dogs._ Yet she bought three, and hungrily worked her way through them instead of her packed sandwich as she answered some new texts from her boyfriend Robbie.

" _Still picking u up tonight?"_

" _Yup. Come by at nine-thirty."_

" _Kk. See u later, babe. Love u."_

" _Love u 2."_

During his independent study hour, TJ was sitting in the mess hall, reading through the final chapters of _Rewriting the Program_ when Ralph unexpectedly called him, despite the rule that they weren't supposed to chat on their phones during work hours. "Kid, you're not going to believe this! Mr. Litwak just subscribed to our channel!"

" _What?!"_ TJ quickly looked around, to make sure no one had heard him. He brought his voice down to a whisper. "Are you serious?!"

"One hundred percent serious, and then some!"

"What are we going to do?!"

"What do you mean, what are we going to do?"

"What if he finds out—!"

"Awwww, he won't," Ralph insisted dismissively. "There's gotta be thousands of Fix-It Felix Jr. consoles out there, and besides, everyone thinks our videos are made by Indian animators!"

"Indie animators," TJ corrected him. "Short for 'independent.'"

"That's what I said. Indie animators. Litwak won't make the connection. No way, José."

"Maybe we should stop making videos and new songs for awhile, and just stick to private performances," TJ suggested. "Just play it safe."

"Yeah, maybe…but playing safe didn't get us where we are now, though," Ralph pointed out.

"No," TJ admitted with a smile as he closed his book. His independent study hour was coming to an end, and he had to report for kitchen duty soon, and then a whole afternoon of classes. Like Ralph, he didn't get to be a celebrity until the arcade closed. He had to follow his uncles' program, just like Ralph had to follow his game's. "No, it didn't. I gotta go. See ya tonight, Ralph."

"See ya tonight, kid." When the arcade finally _did_ close, and Mr. Litwak locked the doors behind him, Ralph felt like he'd been released from bondage, as did everyone else.

"Yo, Ralph! Get your ass to Tappers!" someone called out jokingly from one of the nearby consoles. "We wanna dance!"

"That's good news!" Ralph called back. "Because I'm planning on singing 'till the sun comes up!"

The other surrounding consoles laughed and cheered. "Alright!" "It's time for the cats to play!" "It's party time!" "Let's _SWING!"_

Ralph nearly tore his shack door clean off as he dashed in to wash up and change into his stage clothes. It was funny to think that, in the first three decades the arcade had been open, he'd never been invited to any parties. Now he _was_ the party! People sure did change their opinion of you quickly when you were famous.

As he slipped into his clothes and fiddled with his tie, he thought about how much things had changed for him, and for the whole arcade, ever since he and TJ had returned after their BuzzzTube performance. When they, plus TJ's uncles, had stepped out of the WiFi entrance after having spent the night at BuzzzTube recovering from a lively celebration afterparty, there had been a cheering crowd in Game Central Station waiting for them. It was the first time either of them had gotten such a reception from the people at Litwak's. Neither of them had ever thought they _would_ get such a reception.

The Bad Anon members had rushed forward first, to gush about how happy the show had made them and to admonish Ralph for never singing for any of them before.

"Ralph! My friend!" Zangief had cried as he heartily embraced his fellow bad guy. "Why have you been hiding that voice from us for so long?!"

 _Because none of you ever talked to me. That's why._ You couldn't sing for someone when you couldn't even say hello without them screaming and doing a runner. He'd also been rather embarrassed about his hushed-up skill, once upon a time. Singing wasn't something bad guys _did,_ and for a long time only Vanellope had known about it. As he'd told Felix and Sergeant Calhoun later that day when his game's good guy and his wife voiced similar complaints to Zangief's, "It's just another thing I've kept buried under the bricks."

But that was all behind him now. His secret was out and there was no stashing it back away again. He was on tonight, and every night for the rest of the week, and he couldn't be happier. TJ had told all their viewers that Ralph had lost a bet to him, but in reality, Ralph had won. He had won big time.

"See you guys there!" he called out to Felix and the Nicelanders as he made his way to the train. Tappers wouldn't open its doors that night until eleven, but he, TJ, and the band needed to be there early for set up and sound checks.

"Good night, Mr. Litwak!" Stephanie called out to her boss as she climbed into the car her boyfriend was borrowing from his foster parents. "See you on Monday!"

"Have a good weekend, Stephanie." Mr. Litwak watched them drive off with a slightly sad smile. Oh, to be so young. When he'd been her age, both he and Jeff had rarely had time to go out, have fun, meet girls, and go on dates. They'd both been working so much, and they'd thought there would be time for all of that later. But time had eluded them, and Mr. Litwak was going home to an empty house. No wife, no children, no close friends, and not even a brother to call and chat with, because Jeff still wasn't talking to him. He sighed sorrowfully. Such was life.

"Alright, is this everyone?" Felix asked. He was dressed in his swankiest clothes, as were the group of Nicelanders who were coming with him to Tappers. They were gathered outside the building, waiting for any last-minute additions to the party.

"Lucy and Mary said they were coming down," Don said. At a nearby table, Gene was sitting at a picnic table, sipping a martini and pretending to be invested in the Current Events section of a newspaper.

"Gene, are you _absolutely sure_ you don't wanna come?" Felix asked him.

"I'll pass," Gene said, without looking up.

But Felix, out of neighbourly kindness, tried again. "I know there's been, um, _bad feelings_ between you and Ralph, but a night out would do you a world of good, considering—" Gene and Deanna had recently broken up, to absolutely no one's surprise. Their bad-tempered spats had become as part of their daily routine as Happy Hour.

"I said I'll pass," Gene repeated irritably. Just then, Lucy stepped out of the front doors of the main building.

"Mary, _come on,"_ she pleaded behind her. "You don't look trashy! You look gorgeous, I swear!"

"What's going on?" Felix asked, abandoning his campaign with Gene and approaching the young female Nicelander.

"Mary thinks the outfit I picked out for her is too 'immodest,'" Lucy explained, making quotation marks with her fingers.

"It is," came Mary's voice from behind the door. "I never wear anything like this."

"Well, let's have a look, and we'll tell you what we think," Felix said. Nervously, Mary stepped out. Felix and the others' mouths dropped, and when Gene glanced over curiously, his eyes flew wide open.

Lucy had managed to get her fellow female Nicelander into a short, flirty, purple fringe dress with spaghetti straps, putting both her bare shoulders and shapely legs on full display. It was certainly the most revealing outfit any of them had ever seen Mary wear, but it was by no means trashy. She looked _hot._

Nicelander Don brought his fingers to his mouth and wolf-whistled, making Mary blush. "Oh, Don, _don't,"_ she begged, turning away and bringing her gloved hand to her reddening cheek.

Gene, not for a second taking his eyes off Mary, slowly put his martini glass aside. "You know what? I've changed my mind. I think I will come along." He grinned and straightened his tie. Suddenly, it _really_ felt like Happy Hour.

Vanellope, wheeling her little suitcase behind her, stepped into a very deserted Game Central Station barely an hour later. There was not a soul to be seen except for the Surge Protector.

"I think I'm gonna go back to Litwak's for a little while," she'd told Shank earlier that day. "I need a break."

"From Slaughter Race?" the oldest racer had asked her.

"From everything," Vanellope had replied. From Slaughter Race, from the Ralph and TJ-obsessed internet, from the constant queasiness and longing that kept her from concentrating on anything, including and most especially driving. She couldn't stop thinking about Ralph. She wanted to be near Ralph.

"That's probably a good idea," Shank had said. "Did you call Ralph and let him know?"

"Uhhhhh, no. I thought…I thought I might surprise him." She didn't want to face the very, _very_ slight possibility that Ralph might reject her if she called to ask if she could come visit for a week or so. She knew he hadn't fully forgiven her for her messy slipup at BuzzzTube, and she couldn't fully blame him either. She hadn't been thinking at the time. She'd just been angry. Angry, and desperate enough to risk pushing him away in order to make her feelings (very publicly) known.

Now she was determined to do whatever she had to do to win Ralph back. She realized now that those six golden years together at Litwak's had been perfect, and that she had taken them for granted. She was a hundred percent certain she could restore their friendship to what it had been, and make him remember how perfect those six years had been too.

Sure, TJ could shoot paintballs, and make funny wisecracks, and write hit songs that wowed the whole world, but there was something she had with Ralph that he didn't have, and that was _history._ It wouldn't take much to tap into Ralph's nostalgia. A race around Tron, a trip to BurgerTime, a burping contest at Tappers. A stroll around the candy tree forest in Sugar Rush, where they'd first met, and then a visit to Diet Cola Mountain, where they'd forged their bond. That was all it would take. She was confident that was all it would take for Ralph to be all hers again. Then TJ would have to go sing with someone else.

"Well, well, long time no see, Miss Von Schweetz," the Surge Protector greeted the new arrival. "The internet treating you well?"

 _It was until it fell in love with Ralph and TJ._ "Ehh, more or less. It's a new trip every day. Hey, what gives? Where is everyone?" Vanellope asked. "It's like a ghost town up in here!"

"Anyone who's anyone is at Tappers right now," Surge Protector told her.

"Why? Is it Ladies Night or somethin'?"

Surge Protector shrugged. "Go see for yourself."

That was exactly what she did, after leaving her suitcase with Surge back in the station for safekeeping. She heard the music even before the Tappers train started slowing to a crawl, a snazzy, pounding, exhilarating beat that made her heart beat faster the way a dangerous race did. She heard shouts and cheering as well.

And, above it all, she heard Ralph's voice, singing loudly and singing true. He was leading a crowd through a song.

" _Give me a heeeeeeeeeey-o!"_

"Heeeeeeeeeeeeeey-o!"

" _I said HEEEEEEEEEEEEY-O!"_

"HEEEEEEEEEEEEY-O!"

" _I said hey-ay-ay,_ _it's time to quit! It's a bullseye you just can't hit!_ **SWING IT!"** Vanellope swung open Tappers' doors, and she was greeted with a sight that completely blew her away. She could hardly believe her eyes.

Tappers was _happening!_ She'd never seen it so crowded before, not even when she and Ralph used to come here on its busy nights! Tapper must have learned to mod—or maybe he'd always known how to mod—because Tappers itself looked different too. The long tables had vanished to make room for a spacious dance floor, and there were red and gold lights strung everywhere too, to accompany Tappers' trademark, retro flashing signs. These seemed to be powered by the electric energy the combined music and dancing surged through the game.

Vanellope blinked rapidly. "What the…when did Tappers become a _speakeasy?!"_

On the dance floor, characters she'd once known as friends and acquaintances were swing-dancing like mad, in couples or in groups. The couples were the ones showing off the most, doing tricks and stunts, flipping and dipping and spinning as if it were a competition. Felix and Sergeant Calhoun were out there, of course, as were Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, Mario and Peach, and many, many others. Sonic was on the floor too, cutting a rug with his friends Sally and Amy Rose, taking turns twirling them both. Even Gene was out there, happily dancing with Mary and _not_ looking like a stuck-up spoilsport for once!

At the bar pushed to the far side of the game, she spotted Sour Bill helping Tapper pour drinks. And on stage, there was Ralph, dancing with the microphone, and TJ, pounding away on the piano. A rag-tag mishmash of characters with instruments made up their band. And they were _good._

" _When it's game night, you gotta aim right, this ain't no horseshoe toss—!"_ Vanellope stared at Ralph, who was impeccably dressed in a new pinstripe suit and hat and blazing with confidence and charm, as though he'd been a nightclub singer all his life. Her first thought was, _this is not my Ralph, this is not my Stinkbrain._ But she knew that thought was wrong even before she'd finished thinking it, because this _was_ Ralph. This was a Ralph she'd never known, a Ralph she'd never tried to bring out, a Ralph that had always existed but had never surfaced because for six years straight his one and only priority had been being _her_ hero and best friend.

She thought about the night he'd revealed to her that he could sing. It had been, what? Five years ago? Five and a half? Her stomach tightened as she remembered her reaction. _I laughed. I laughed at him. I thought he was pulling my leg._

He'd insisted he was telling the truth. "Alright, Smellvis Presley, prove it!"

And he had, but not until they were completely alone together. He'd made very, _very_ certain that no one was around to hear him, and kept looking about anxiously while she tapped her foot.

"C'mon, Ralph! Sing for your supper, already! I'm getting bored here…"

He nodded and straightened himself up. "Alright, here goes." And then he'd taken a deep breath, opened his mouth, and began to sing…

" _Give me a heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey-o!"_

"Heeeeeeeeeeeeeey-o!"

" _I said_ _ **HEEEEEEEEEEEEY-O!"**_

" _ **HEEEEEEEEEEEEY-O!"**_

" _I said hey-oh-oh, it's time to scoot! Come back when you've learned to shoot!_ **YEAH!"**

The crowd stopped dancing and applauded as he, TJ, and the band wrapped up "First Person Shooter." He gave a little bow and gratefully accepted a glass of water from one of Tappers' waitresses, which he chugged down before speaking into the microphone.

"Alright, folks, we're going to be taking a little break. Grab yourselves a root beer and give your feet a rest, because when we come back, we're _REALLY_ gonna bring the swing!"

More applause at that, and Ralph went straight to TJ at the piano to give him a gentle, comradely pat on the back. Vanellope watched them whisper and titter over some private joke before she accidentally locked eyes with TJ, who quickly elbowed Ralph and pointed at her.

Vanellope gulped. Neither of them looked very happy to see her, but there was no turning around now. She was here, and she had a mission to see through.

As Ralph made his way over to her, the crowd swiftly parted for him, though now it was out of respect rather than fear. People patted him on the back or shoulder as he passed by as though he were a walking good luck charm, and some even stopped him to shake his hand, compliment his singing, and make a song request for another night. And Ralph was as friendly as he could be to all of them, even to the ones who had previously snubbed him or mocked him, but when he finally reached Vanellope, that friendly smile was gone.

"Hey, kid," he greeted her with more civility than warmth. "What are you doing here?"

"What do you think I'm doing here? I came to see you!" He didn't look as enthusiastic as she was trying to sound. One of the waitresses came to them with a root beer for Ralph that Tapper had sent over, on the house. She walked away before Vanellope could order one for herself.

"You should have called, if you wanted to come home," Ralph told her as he picked up his glass. "I would have picked you up on the warp pad."

 _With TJ._ "I wanted to surprise you!" She threw open her arms. "Surprise!"

"Where are you going to stay?" Ralph asked, without skipping a beat.

"Uhhhhhhhhh…" To be honest, she hadn't really thought of that. "Sugar Rush?"

"If you can convince _President Taffyta_ to put you up," Ralph said. "I gotta warn ya, none of them were very thrilled with your choice to jump ship for the S.S. Slaughter Race, and they still aren't. In fact, a lot of them are more sour about it than Bill over there. I would look to crash elsewhere."

"Can I stay with you, then?" Vanellope asked. "I won't be any trouble, I swear! We can do all the fun stuff we used to do! Like race in Tron, pig out in BurgerTime, make paper airplanes in Paper Boy—"

Ralph shook his head. "No can do, kid. I'm booked all week."

Vanellope's eyes shot open. _"All week?!"_

Ralph nodded, and began to list his upcoming singing engagements on his fingers. "All week. Tomorrow we're here at Tappers again, and then the day after that, Xtreme Paintball for Champ's birthday blowout. Then after that it's Dragon's Lair's anniversary, Ms. Pac-Man's tea social, and then this big party the ninja turtles are throwing for—"

"Alright, alright! I get it!" Vanellope cried exasperatedly. "So when can I _book you,_ Mr. Fancy Showman?"

"Don't give me that!" Ralph snapped. "You can't just show up here out of the blue and expect me to drop all my commitments for you! What world are you living in?"

"A world without you in it, it looks like!" Vanellope snapped back.

"Yeah, well, welcome to what the first few months without you were like for me." Ralph took a quick, hard gulp of his root beer and roughly wiped his mouth on the napkin. "I dealt with it and so can you."

"You're still mad at me, aren't you?" Ralph said nothing. He just took another sip of his drink. "I said sorry!"

"Yeah, well, sorry's not gonna make that video clip stop circulating the web." Vanellope yelling at Maybee and asking Ralph if TJ was his best friend, plus Ralph's blunt answer, had gone viral, to the point where one person who clearly had no life had even autotuned it. It was on YouTube, though, not BuzzzTube, so there wasn't much Yesss could do about it except make some angry phone calls. So to be fair, _nothing_ was going to make Vanellope's blunder stop circulating the web. Especially not an apology.

"Look," Ralph went on, unable to ignore the pained look on Vanellope's face. "You can stay with me. Of course you can stay with me. But I can't hang out with you, at least not the way we used to hang out."

Vanellope nodded dolefully and stared down at the floor as she shuffled her feet. "Okay…" So much for all her grand plans.

"I need you to understand what a big deal this is for me. I'm finally doing a job that I like, a job that other people like too. Everyone hated me for wrecking, for everyone loves for singing, and when I step up to that microphone…" He pointed at the stage. "I feel wanted."

Then he quickly shook his head and corrected himself. "No, not just wanted. I feel _alive!_ Singing is such a rush for me. It's something that's _mine,_ something I can control…" He looked at her then. "It's not racing, so maybe to you it's not important, but to me, right now, it's everything."

"It's important to me too!" Vanellope protested. "You're the best singer I know! The best that's ever existed! Frank Sinatra _who?!"_

At last she got a smile from him, a warm and appreciative one, and he reached out to touch her cheek with his thumb. "Thanks, Little Miss Fartfeathers. That means a lot."

She practically melted with relief. _There's my Ralph._

At the bar, Sour Bill pushed two root beers towards TJ. "Here you go," he said in his usual joyless tone.

"Thanks, Bill." If the sour green ball was salty about having to serve drinks to his former abusive boss's son, he didn't show it. TJ imagined that Sour Bill wouldn't show emotion even if someone had told him his cat had been run over by an ice cream trunk. He slid Bill a generous tip. "This is for you."

Sour Bill stared at it skeptically, as though he suspected TJ was playing a trick on him. _Did Turbo ever pay him at all, in anything except M &Ms? _Finally, he took it, and stashed it in his tip box. "Thank you for your business."

Over the past little while, TJ had been making a whole lot of new discoveries about what had gone down in Sugar Rush while his birth parent had been in charge. He and Ralph had even visited a few times, and TJ had ventured down into the Rock Candy Mines to see where he had been born. The Sugar Rush characters seemed to have decided that TJ was trustworthy, especially since he'd proven to them all that he was nothing like Turbo (and how!) They told him things, things he couldn't help but wish he could unhear. Things had made him understand entirely why his face still unnerved some of them. Things that made him resolve to be nicer to Vanellope now that she was here.

"I'm older now. I have to act like it," he thought as he approached Ralph and Vanellope with the drinks. He was ashamed of himself for having savored Vanellope's fall from favor earlier. He imagined that Turbo was savoring it himself in jail, if he knew anything about it. "I can't turn into _him._ I can't. I have to do better. I have to _be_ better. _"_

"Welcome back," he greeted Vanellope politely as he stood before her with his peace offering. "This is on me."

Vanellope hesitated before taking one of the root beers. It looked so ice-cold and inviting, she couldn't resist. It was so hot in the dance club, and she was so thirsty. Had Tapper turned up the heat on purpose, to make more sales? "Thanks."

"See? Now wasn't that easy?" Ralph asked. "No more bickering, you two, and no more bad feelings. We're starting fresh from this point on. Come on…" He raised his glass. "Let's make a toast. To new beginnings. Cheers."

"Cheers," TJ and Vanellope echoed as they clinked glasses. The two younglings eyed each other uncertainly over their pints as they drank, but Ralph seemed satisfied enough.

"Vanellope gets to pick the next song," he decided then and there. "Anything you want, kid. I know them all. Shoot."

Vanellope thought about it carefully before she answered, "Gamer Girl. I really like that one."

"Gamer Girl it is. Come on, Twiggy Jiggy. Let's make the magic happen." Ralph led TJ away, leaving Vanellope alone with her root beer in a crowd of people having the time of their lives, all thanks to the two of them messing around on a keyboard one day when they were bored.

"This never would have happened if I hadn't left," she realized sadly, as she took another sip and looked around the nightclub. The guests, seeing Ralph and TJ retake the stage, were eagerly reaching out for their friends' and partners' hands to pull them back onto the dancefloor.

If she hadn't left Litwak's, Ralph's singing talent would have remained a secret, and he never would have revived his career on BuzzzTube. She'd been like a speedbump, slowing him down, limiting his potential. She'd accused him of standing in the way of _her_ dreams when not once had she lifted a finger to help him with his.

She would have to be more than just a speedbump if she wanted Ralph back, she realized then and there. She would have to come up with a way to make singing even more worthwhile for him, to make him into even more of a shining star, the shiniest star there was. The only question was, how?

* * *

 **End of Chapter**

* * *

I've thought about this, and you know who the perfect voice actor for teenage TJ would be? Ezra Miller, hands down. He can sing, and he and John C. Reilly have played father and son in a movie before (We Need to Talk About Kevin). I mean, _that_ ended hideously, but the connection is still there. Leave your own candidates for TJ's possible voice actor in your reviews. I'd love to hear them.


	7. Chapter 7

In which Ralph slowly metamorphosizes into his voice actor. "Rooftop Blues" are my own original lyrics.

Also, I have a headcanon that most of the racers' new "sweetness" at the end of the second film is them acting for their new parents' benefit. Felix and Calhoun are trying, but they just can't win that easily against fifteen years of bad example and preprogrammed personalities. If you disagree, that's fine. It's all interpretation here. Enjoy the chapter.

* * *

 **Rewriting the Program:** **Chapter Seven  
Second Place Trophies and Oscar-Winning Performances**

* * *

Vanellope felt like she deserved an Oscar. There was no greater actor than someone who could pretend they were having a grand old time in the company of old friends when, in reality, they were miserable, lonely, and confused as could be.

Ralph's life revolved entirely around singing now. When he'd told her that his new second career was everything to him, he'd really meant it, one hundred percent. No suggested outing or activity could lure him away from the siren's choir that was his stage, his microphone, and his audience. Between that, and his rock-solid work and life partnership with TJ, Vanellope _really_ felt slotted down to second place.

It started when Ralph brought her back to his home and she discovered that her kart was no longer being safekept by him in Fix-It Felix Jr. "I gave it to Taffyta after the Zoom Challenge fiasco. She's got it safely locked up in Sugar Rush," he explained.

Vanellope was dismayed. "So if I want it, I'm gonna have to go ask her for it?!"

Ralph shrugged, as if it wasn't an urgent and pressing matter. "She won't say no. Trust me, Felix and the Sarge won't let her say no. You'll get it back."

Then came the settling in, if it could even be called that. There was almost no room for Vanellope to hang up her clothes in Ralph's closet, because a neat row of classy, finely-made stage suits, plus undershirts, all clean and ironed and ready to be worn, occupied the space where Ralph used to stash his weird collection of souvenirs from his adventures with her. She was going to have to live out of her suitcase, it looked like.

"Where'd they all go?" she asked. By "they" she meant the question mark cube from Super Mario that spit out wonky-looking coins, the rings from Sonic's game, the Tappers napkin dispenser, the football helmets, the car parts from Street Fighter, the basket they'd swiped off of Paper Boy's bike after Paper Boy had failed to apologize for throwing a newspaper at Ralph's head, Gene's moustache comb (also stolen), Mario's moustache comb (stolen to compare with Gene's), and many others.

Ralph shrugged. "I had a yard sale. I had to declutter." Vanellope looked at him. "Oh, come on! My house is small! I have to prioritize!"

 _Or you could have gotten a bigger house. You're rich now. You can afford it._ She promptly swallowed down the same rage that had possessed her like a demon at BuzzzTube when her kart had been called a prop, but the taste was just as sharp and bitter. _My kart is a prop and Ralph's memorabilia is clutter, so what does that make me now? A recyclable?_

Vanellope distracted herself from her creeping, toxic thoughts by regarding Ralph's very tall, very decorated hat rack. "Hey, Stinkbrain, the 1940s called. They said you're under arrest for robbing a hat store and they're sending the mafia after you."

"It's called vintage, little sister." He swiped one off the top of the rack and dropped it on her head. "Try it."

Vanellope looked at herself in Ralph's full-length mirror. "It does look pretty cool," she thought as she struck one snazzy pose and then another. The hat itself was too big for her and threatened to fall over her eyes if she didn't hold it up. Aloud, she said, "Where'd you get all of this anyway?

"Yesss knows some top-notch tailors. TJ and I even get discounts for wearing their stuff in our music videos. You can't beat good advertising." Ralph sighed as he lovingly fingered the sleeve of one of the suits. "Man, I would be one happy son of a gun if I could wear this all the time. I've never had clothes like these before."

"I never thought I would see the day when you actually gave a hoot about clothes," Vanellope said as she yanked off the hat and handed it over. Ralph wiped some imaginary dust off the top of it with his finger before carefully setting it back on the hat rack.

"When you're in show business, you have to give a hoot," Ralph retorted. He pulled out one of the suits, electric blue with white stripes, to show her. "You see, I had this in mind for Ms. Pac-Man's tea social, but now I'm not so sure, because her get-togethers are usually pretty informal. I feel like this is too loud, even if I switch out the usual tangerine tie I pair it with for a more subtle grey or white one."

Vanellope couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Okay, pal, you've lost me. What language is this? How can an outfit be _loud?_ It's just clothes, Ralph! Wear the one you like best!"

Ralph shook his head. "You really don't get it, do you?" He glanced out the window, where some of the female Nicelanders were sitting at a picnic table, chatting over espressos. He stepped out and called to them.

"Hey, Lucy! You've got good taste in clothes! I need your help with something!" At once Nicelander Lucy hopped out of her seat with a little "duty calls" bounce.

"How may I be of service?" she asked as she ducked into the bad guy's shack.

"You're gonna be at Ms. Pac-Man's on Tuesday, right?" Ralph asked her.

She beamed. "Wouldn't miss it for the world!"

He held up the blue suit for her inspection. "Should I wear this?"

"Oh, _no no no,_ that's waaaaaay too loud for Ms. Pac-Man!" Lucy cried, utterly scandalized. "Save that one for the TMNT party! You should wear, hmmmmmmm—"

She went over to his closet and, after painstakingly considering all the options, pointed at a far less alarming but stylishly cut tan suit with a vest. "—this one!"

"Oooooo, that's perfect!" Ralph exclaimed. Vanellope rolled her eyes.

"And pair it with…" Lucy opened up his tie drawer and surveyed the selection. "…this!" She held up a red silk tie with black polka dots. "For a splash of color!"

"Thanks, Lucy. You're an angel." After Lucy had returned to her girlfriends, Ralph turned to Vanellope and said, "See? She gets it. It's all about image. Personal taste takes second place."

"Who are you and what have you done with Ralph? _"_ Vanellope thought, shook to the core by how much Ralph had changed. The toiletry table was a shrine to the new Ralph as well. High quality men's cologne and aftershave. Facial scrub and moisturizer. Some fancy shampoo that had green tea in it, with conditioner to match. Eyebrow tweezers and comb. _An electric toothbrush._

"What's this?" Vanellope asked, pointing at what looked like a giant popsicle stick.

"My nail buffer." Vanellope's mouth fell open.

"Are you _serious?!"_

"Nail care is important!" Ralph protested defensively. "Maybee gets his nails done every week! It's hygienic!"

Vanellope was completely done by that point. "You're killing me, Stinkbrain…" What other weird, crazy changes at Litwak's was she in for?

She found out early in the morning, when she woke up in Ralph's shack to the sound of Ralph singing.

" _I don't bother, chasing mice aroooooooooooound! WOAH NO! I slink down the alley, lookin' for a fight, howling to the moonlight on a hot summer night!"_

Vanellope groaned and pulled her pillow over her head. "Didn't he sing enough last night?!" she grumbled to herself irritably. He'd really kept his promise to the arcade to sing until the sun came up, and then some. Vanellope remembered with a pang in her chest all the times Ralph had sat with her in Game Central Station to _watch_ the sun come up, not serenade it. They'd done it almost every morning. It had been part of their routine. Now, it looked like Ralph and TJ had their own special morning routine. Sunrise be damned, and so were the few hours of sleep she'd been hoping to catch.

TJ's voice drifted into the shack, very obviously filtered through a BuzzPhone. _"Singin' the blues, while the lady cats cry! Wow, stray cat, you're a real gone guy! I wish I could be as carefree and wild, but I got cat class and I got cat styyyyyyyyyle!"_

"What you've got is a big mouth and a load of dumb luck, TJ," Vanellope thought to herself as she pulled herself out of her little bed in the corner of the shack. She tried not to think about the possibility that TJ had slept in the bed in her absence.

As she quickly dressed and did her hair up with the licorice tie, she tried to think of ways she could either jumpstart Ralph's singing career or at least be useful to it in some way. It had to be something she could do but TJ couldn't. Something that would impress Ralph and showed how serious she was about being involved in the show. But _what?_ She couldn't really dance that well. She couldn't play any instruments. She couldn't write songs (her one attempt at doing so had made a room full of princesses cringe). She couldn't be Ralph and TJ's manager, because, as she'd already found out, TJ's uncles arranged all the Litwak's gigs, and TJ's Uncle Kohut, who'd been an accountant and financial advisor before joining the marines, managed Ralph and TJ's money as well. There weren't any jobs left for her.

Could she be a backup singer, maybe? The thought led her outside to where Ralph was sprawled out on his bricks, phone in hand. With her own hands in her sweatshirt pockets, she waited for Ralph and TJ to reach the chorus.

When they did, she attempted to join in with Ralph. _"SINGIN' THE BLUES, while the lady cats cry—!"_ Unfortunately for her, her scratchy, untrained voice cracked at the tricky notes, and Ralph stopping singing as well. So much for that idea.

"Aw, shoot, kid, did we wake ya?" he asked. "Sorry, we get a little carried away sometimes…"

"Do you like Stray Cats?" TJ asked from the phone speaker.

"Um…I like pettin' em." She didn't know what the song or the band was called. She'd just figured that, like every other song, the chorus was repetitive. "I'm more of a dog person, really."

"Oh! TJ! That reminds me," Ralph said into the phone. "We gotta add 'Hound Dog' to the lineup tonight. I promised Sonic."

"I guess we can throw that in," TJ answered. "We can slot it between 'It Don't Mean a Thing' and 'Rooftop Blues.'"

"But what if we did it _after_ the break _after_ Rooftop Blues—"

"That's when the Sweet Swingers are on."

"Oh, right." Ralph smacked his forehead. "I completely forgot!"

"Who are the Sweet Swingers?" Vanellope, who was beginning to feel invisible as Ralph and TJ played their game of song shuffle, cut in and asked. "Are they another band?"

"It's the Sugar Rush racers. They've formed a dance troupe," TJ said. Vanellope burst out laughing.

"Oh, _yeah right!"_ she cried out. "Is Sour Bill doing stand-up comedy too?!"

"It's true," Ralph said. "The racers being dancers, I mean. Not the Sour Bill thing. And there's a new choir, and lots of street performers in Game Central during the week. Skrillex has been making a killing too, giving people guitar lessons and doing all these new remixes. Everyone's really been jumping on the music train lately."

 _Everyone but me._ Litwak's really had remade itself while she was gone, it seemed. She'd come back expecting everything to be the same, waiting for her, ready for her, but it wasn't the same, not by a long shot. By being fun and creative, Ralph and TJ had really changed things, for everyone as well as themselves. The Tappers nightclub, the parties, the singing and dancing all around…it was like a breath of fresh air had swept through the arcade and woken everyone out of their complacent funk. The dullness, the tedium, the routine…it was all gone now. Ralph and TJ put their heads together had fixed it.

She, on the other hand, had run away from it.

She had never considered for a moment that she could do something about it too.

She hadn't even tried.

"I have to go to mass soon," TJ said. On Sundays, he and his uncles attended service in the chapel where Sergeant Calhoun and Felix had gotten married. "My uncles want to know if you're still coming for Sunday lunch as usual or if you and Vanellope have your own plans."

Ralph looked at Vanellope, who clasped her hands together in a begging gesture and started mouthing "BurgerTime, BurgerTime…"pleadingly. Ralph turned back to the phone.

"As good as your uncles' cooking is, I think I'm gonna have to skip this time," Ralph told him. Vanellope did a little victory dance beside him. "You understand, don't ya?"

"Oh, yeah, for sure! I completely understand!" TJ didn't sound at all upset. In fact, he sounded pleased as punch. "I'll see you both at Tappers later, then."

"We'll see _you_ at Tappers, buddy!" Ralph exclaimed. "Catch ya later, Twiggy Jiggy!"

"Catch ya later." TJ hung up the phone and went over to his uncles on the other side of the kitchen. "He's not bringing her for lunch."

At once his uncles' all let out sighs of relief. "Oh, _thank God!"_ None of them had been too impressed with Vanellope's bad behavior at BuzzzTube. Neither were they keen on the idea of having to host her at their table and pretend they weren't annoyed with her for trying to sabotage TJ's big night.

"I'm not angry at her anymore," TJ said as he pulled off his dirty kitchen apron and threw it into the laundry hamper. "It's not like she ever had parents who taught her how to behave."

He didn't want to admit that he was rather relieved himself that she wasn't coming for lunch. He needed more time to figure out how he was going to deal with her. _She's just a kid who's had it rough and who's made some really bad choices. Dr. McAfee advises patience and understanding at all times, especially to child characters without strong moral guardians assigned to them in their games. I can be patient and understanding. I learned how to get along with the Sugar Rush racers and I can learn how to get along with her._

As he made his way back to his room to change for mass, he felt abruptly nauseous again, as he had the previous morning, and he ducked into the games room to be sick in a garbage can.

"What's wrong with me?" he wondered as he rinsed his mouth with water from the cooler. He couldn't help but think that it had something to do with Vanellope coming back, but he dismissed that idea as ridiculous. Why should he blame her for his stomach problems when he wasn't even blaming her for her behavioral issues? "I'm eating too much. That's gotta be it. I gotta cut back from now on. Only one helping of everything at lunch."

Back in Fix-It Felix Jr., Vanellope sat on Ralph's tree trunk, hitting her foot against it impatiently while Ralph did his new morning grooming routine, which was taking _forever_ and seemed to Vanellope utterly pointless. "Just brush your teeth so you don't kill anyone with your morning breath and let's _go!"_

"You're the one who was always complaining about how I smelled!" Ralph called back from his shack, where he was busy spraying on deodorant. "Make up your mind! Do you want me to reek or not?!"

"I was just teasin' ya!" Vanellope cried back. "You take everything so seriously!"

"You're one to talk!" When he was _finally_ ready, and dressed in casual green trousers and a red striped polo shirt (his trademark overalls were hanging on a clothesline, discarded and unconsidered for his Sunday off), they set off to Game Central Station. Vanellope noticed immediately that the Surge didn't stop them. But everyone else did.

"Heeeeeeey, Ralph, my man! How's it going?!"

"Lookin' good, buddy! Where'd ya get the digs?"

"You killed it at Tappers last night! Can't wait 'till tonight!"

"Come visit us sometime! Bring TJ!"

"Would you mind signing this, Ralph? It's for my sister. Oh, hi, Penelope."

"The name's _Vanellope!"_ the former Sugar Rush racer spat. _At this rate, we'll be eating dinner at BurgerTime instead of lunch!_ "Ralph, can we go, please?! I'm starving!"

"Just a sec, kid," Ralph said as he scribbled on a poster in black Sharpie. "So how do you spell your sister's name again?"

"Oh, forget it! I'll meet you there!" Vanellope stormed off, ignoring Ralph's calls for her to just wait for him, he won't be long. _Oh, yeah right. Come find me when you want a best friend instead of a fanbase._ Her appetite was gone by the time she boarded the BurgerTime train. She'd already put up with more than she could stomach, and it wasn't even noon yet.

* * *

"She has a lot of nerve, coming back," spat Taffyta as she and Crumbelina rummaged through Nicelander Deanna's box of odds and ends for decorating hats and headbands. They were on the hunt for good costumes pieces for their Tappers performance that night. "I don't know what she's expecting, but if it's a place back on the roster, forget it. In Sugar Rush you're either a committed, full-time racer or you're not, and she's definitely not. We don't offer temp gigs."

"What I don't understand is, why _now,_ of all times?" Crumbelina retorted. "She could have come back whenever she wanted, but she's been missing in action for nearly a year! Why show up _now?"_

"She's jealous of TJ, that's why," Taffyta answered. She held up a pale pink fabric flower, turned it this way and that, and ultimately decided against it. After tossing it back into the box, she remarked, "He's cool and talented and way less whiny and annoying, so Ralph likes him better, as any sane person would, and poor Vanellope just can't handle that. So she's back to make a play for Ralph, that's all. It has nothing to do with us. She was finished with us long ago."

"It's kind of sad, actually," Crumbelina said. "This is probably going to end badly for her. She'll never get Ralph's undivided attention again."

"And why should she? Ralph's a public figure now, and she's not. He's got a grand future ahead of him and she's got—" Taffyta smiled as she finally found what she was looking for, a large, fluffy bright pink feather that would go perfectly with the outfit she was planning. "—a whoooooole lot of heavy baggage slowing her down. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing her try to compete with someone who co-wrote a forty million heart song. This is one race she isn't going to win with her glitch, that's for sure."

Taffyta and Crumbelina spoke in whispers, because their parents were right in the adjoining room, helping their other children make alternations to _their_ costumes.

"Alright, Rancis, give it a try," Felix said, handing Rancis a pinstripe suit jacket.

Rancis slipped it on and frowned with dissatisfaction at his reflection in the mirror. The jacket was still too big in the shoulders, and he felt like a quarterback, not a quarter-maker. He was going to get laughed off the stage if he went on like this. "Where do Ralph and TJ get _their_ suits?" he asked.

"From a tailor that's a _teensy bit_ out of our price range," Felix said as he made yet another measurement _._ "Don't worry. You'll look just swell when we're finished!"

The game hero had nearly fainted when Ralph had told him how much his suits had cost (and that had been with a _discount)._ "How can you afford that?!" Felix remembered crying out. He remembered Ralph's sly smile as well.

"I can afford piles of these suits," he'd said, waving his hand at his well-arranged wardrobe. "And then some. Between the BuzzzTube videos, iTunes, and the investments Private Kohut helped us with, TJ and I rolling in loot. But these are fine for now."

"How much have you two made?" Felix was almost too scared to ask.

Ralph looked at his friend very seriously. "I don't think you want to know that number, Felix."

"Tell me."

"You're going to have a heart attack," Ralph warned him.

"We're in our game. I'll regenerate. Tell me!"

"Okay, you asked for it—" Felix didn't have a heart attack, but he really did faint that time, and Ralph had to revive him by splashing water on his face. When Felix came to, he was so frazzled that he could hardly remember his own name.

"Don't go spreading it around," Ralph told Felix once he was thinking straight again. "But, you know, if you and the Sarge ever need anything for the kids, you know who to ask—"

Felix was starting to wish that he'd asked Ralph to bring his excellent tailor to Litwak's as he struggled with Rancis's jacket at the sewing machine. But he was reluctant to take up Ralph's offer and ask for anything, especially since Ralph had sacrificed the first thirty years of his life so that he and the Nicelanders could live in comfort. Still, the price of those suits…

"If Ralph wants some nice new things, he's entirely within his rights to have them, now that he has the means," Felix argued with himself. And it wasn't as if Ralph was hoarding _all_ his good fortune to himself. The very next night, after Ralph had shared his secret with his game's good guy, everyone had gone to Tappers to dance. Before the band began to play, Tapper had happily announced that Ralph and TJ had paid off everyone's tabs and that the first round of root beers of the night was on them as well. Everyone had erupted in grateful cheers.

Felix had been grateful as well—one's soda tab racked up fast when you had fifteen kids—but only he knew how small this kind gesture of Ralph and TJ's was in the grand scheme of things.

Sergeant Calhoun had a mouth full of pins as she worked with Minty on her dress, and Nicelander Deanna, a skilled seamstress who had kindly offered to help out, was busy hemming Snowanna's skirt. The female Nicelander was looking peeved that morning, and for good reason. Mary had been seen leaving Gene's apartment in the early hours, pulling up the straps of her coquettish new dress, and had returned not long after in her regular clothes to join Gene for breakfast. It didn't take a mathematician to put two and two together.

"Mom, look," Taffyta glided into the room to show the Sergeant the feather. "Is it perfect or is it perfect?" She held it up against her head and did a little diva-ish spin.

Sergeant Calhoun took the pins out of her mouth. "I'm going to go with perfect. Wait for me and I'll help you with the hot glue gun."

"Vanellope's the one who's going to need help soon," Taffyta thought smugly as she went up to the mirror to strike a pose with her feather. "Psychiatric help, that is. When she realizes absolutely no one but Ralph missed her while she was gone. And even he's over her now."

"Taffyta, honey, don't forget to give Vanellope back her kart later," Felix reminded her as he helped Rancis into the jacket again for another test wear.

"Why? It's not like she needs it. She's not racing with us," Taffyta replied as she tried the feather on the other side of her head.

" _Taffyta!"_ both Felix and Sergeant Calhoun snapped, making their children, and Nicelander Deanna, all jump at once.

Taffyta groaned and turned to face her parents. "She _can't_ race with us!" she cried. "She's completely reckless! She broke away from the player's control and broke the game! I'm not saying no to be mean! I'm the president, and I have to do the reasonable thing! Everyone in Sugar Rush is already freaking out about her racing there again!"

"Alright, fair enough," Sergeant Calhoun said, pleased and also rather proud of her daughter taking her leadership role so seriously. "But can't you come up with a compromise?"

Taffyta thought about it for a moment, and then answered, reluctantly, "Look. I'll give her back her kart, and she can race, _as an NPC._ She can't be one of the racers the players can choose for an avatar. She's forfeited that right and she can't demand that privilege if she can't handle the rules or responsibilities. Is that _fair?"_

Sergeant Calhoun and Felix looked at each other. "I think that's fair, Tammy. What do you think?" Felix asked.

Sergeant Calhoun nodded. "Agreed. Nicely done, Taffyta."

Taffyta smirked triumphantly and turned back to the mirror. "I really am a triple threat, aren't I?" she congratulated herself as she playfully tickled her chin with her feather. "A star racer, a star dancer, _and_ a star president! They really should give me an award."

* * *

Tappers was packed that night, with the dancers letting loose as much as they could before the work week started, and Ralph was on fire, making the King proud from beyond the grave, while Litwak's own young prince accompanied him on the piano.

" _You ain't nothing but a hound dog! Cryin' all the time! You ain't nothing but a hound dog! Cryin' all the time! Wellllllllll, you ain't never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine!"_

Vanellope's foot tapped along and she was, admittedly, feeling the rhythm too. The only problem was she had no one to dance with. Ralph was on the stage. Felix and Calhoun were in the bathrooms, helping the racers change into their dance costumes. Everyone was partnered up or grooving with their closest friends, but she was an (involuntary) wallflower, watering herself with a root beer and trying to have fun.

"There's gotta be someone…" Vanellope looked around. She spotted Bowser Jr., who she instantly forgave for being in "Dad Joke," and waved at him. He awkwardly waved back, but then his sister Wendy O. grabbed him by the shoulders and roughly turned him to face the other way. By the dirty look she shot at Vanellope, it was clear what her stance was on a royal breaking their game and then leaving its helpless inhabitants to fend for themselves. "Fine! I didn't want to dance with your dopey brother anyway!"

The rejected racer then tried for Bart Simpson, whose sister Lisa was the band's sax player—Tapper had hired him on as an extra stagehand and member of the cleanup crew—but he pretended not to notice her. As did Tails and Pacman Jr. TJ, who was watching her from his seat at the piano as he played—he knew all the songs so well that he didn't even need to glance at the sheet music—felt a strong wave of pity for her.

"They were probably all her best friends right after she escaped from Sugar Rush," the Cy-Bug hybrid thought. He knew how things worked. He knew how fickle public opinion was. People who might have celebrated him dying at birth were coming up to him now all the time to chatter about music or other everyday things. And his uncles were accusing _him_ of mood swings!

" _Well, they said you was high-classed! Well, that was just a lie! Yeah, they said you was high-classed, but that was just a lie!"_

"Hello, Vanellope." Vanellope spun around, and there was Taffyta, dressed head to toe in a flapper-esque ensemble, every stitch of it obnoxiously pink. Pink sequined dress, pink heeled shoes, pink pearls, and a pink headband with a huge pink fake feather. Vanellope had never seen such an eyesore outfit in her life.

" _Wellllllll, you ain't never caught a rabbit and you ain't no friend of mine!_ Take it awaaaaay, Lisa!'

"Hello, Taffyta," Vanellope greeted her back just as icily as Lisa Simpson blasted out her sax solo. "Did you say sorry to the bird whose butt you plucked that from?"

"Did you say sorry to Ralph and TJ for that _embarrassing_ little tantrum of yours on BuzzzTalk?" Taffyta fired back. "We all saw it."

Vanellope flushed, but she'd never backed down from a snark battle with Taffyta before, and she wasn't going to start now. "Yeah, so did the rest of the web. So what? It got hearts."

"But it looks like you're not getting any. Nobody wants to dance with someone whose hands aren't clean," Taffyta sneered. The other racers, clad in similar twenties fashion getups, began pouring out of the Tappers bathrooms, followed closely by their parents. Taffyta at once switched to Mommy and Daddy's Little Princess mode.

"Mom, Dad, I was _just_ telling Vanellope that she should join our dance troupe," Taffyta informed her parents with the sweetest faux smile she could muster. "She can perform with us next week, on Friday."

Felix clapped his hands together delightedly. "That's a _great_ idea, sweetheart!"

"Oh, yeah, for sure she should join us," Rancis added, following Taffyta's lead, fake smile and all. "After all, we wouldn't want her to get _bored_ while she's here. Heaven forbid Vanellope gets _bored."_

 _This is why I left you jerk-faces._ "Ohhhhh, how can I resist such an offer?" Vanellope replied. _I can play this game too_. "Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to, because I told the guys in Slaughter Race I'd be back by Thursday. What a shame."

Ralph, TJ, and the band finished up "Hound Dog" and immediately launched into "Rooftops Blues," a slow-paced 'Ralph and TJ' song that Ralph had written on his own. TJ began playing a gentle piano tune, while Sergeant Calhoun began to usher her children towards the stage to wait for their turn to go on.

"Let us know if you change your mind, Sugar Plum," she told Vanellope as she passed her by. "We'll whip something up for you to wear."

 _There's no way you people are getting me into a circus monkey dress like that. I'd rather die._ Felix stayed behind, and chivalrously offered Vanellope his band. "Do you want to dance, Vanellope? We can catch up a little too."

Vanellope hesitated momentarily before shrugging and taking his hand. _Better you than no one, I guess._ On the dance floor, Felix spun her around twice, and Vanellope allowed herself a girlish giggle. It was funny to think that the last time she'd danced with him like this was at his wedding seven years ago, where she'd been the only bridesmaid. That felt like a lifetime ago now.

" _Let me tell ya about the Rooftop Bluuuuuues,"_ Ralph was singing on stage now, embracing the microphone as though it were a loved one. _"You can sing it too after you've paaaaaaaid your duuuuuuues. When you're stranded below, it's hard to rise, even when you're deadest, with your eyes on the prize. I've been a rock-bottom feeder, so I've been feelin' the Rooftop Bluuuuuuuuuues…"_

"So how have you been?" Felix asked Vanellope as they danced. "Have you and Ralph, um, resolved your issues?"

"What issues?" Vanellope retorted at once. Felix frowned.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about. What happened on BuzzzTalk—"

"—was scripted," Vanellope finished for him quickly. "Didn't cha know that? You gotta throw some soap opera drama in there for the viewers!" Felix didn't look convinced, so Vanellope quickly changed the subject. "So how's life as a Dad been? The racers make you wanna race off a cliff yet?"

" _Why should you bother, climbing to the toooooooop. They'll throw you off, and it's a long, long, lonely droooooooop…"_

"It was a little chaotic at first, but now we're quite a happy little family!" Felix exclaimed cheerfully. "And now that they've started thinking of TJ as their big cousin, it's been even better! He's been visiting Sugar Rush, and they even want to throw his first birthday party there, when May rolls around again! A little kindness and acceptance reeeeeeeeally goes a long way!"

 _So do forty million BuzzzTube hearts and an iTunes contract._ If Vanellope knew the racers, they were hoping to get something out of their so-called new 'kinship' with TJ. An appearance in a music video as background dancers, perhaps. _They were always a bunch of suck-ups. I should tell TJ how far there were willing to go for his Dad's attention. He could ask for waaaaaaaay more than a birthday party, if he wanted to…_

" _I don't ask for much, just cut me some slack! I've fallen twelve stories and I'm flat on my back! I'll tell my story to yoooooooou while the band plays the Rooftop Bluuuuuuuues…"_

"Felix, can I ask you something?" Vanellope began as Felix twirled her around again.

Felix himself did a quick little twirl on his own on his heel before pulling her back to him. "Why sure, honeybunch! Fire away!"

"How come you and Sarge never wanted to adopt _me?"_ She looked Felix straight in the eyes as she put that question forward. Felix stopped dancing with her, and cleared his throat.

"Well, Vanellope, it's like this," Felix said. "As fond as we are of you, Tammy and I could never consider becoming your parents. Not in a million years."

"Why?!" Vanellope demanded. "Because I'm too weird, or too annoying, or too loud?!"

Felix quickly shook his head. "No, no! Of course not!"

"Why, then?!"

"Because you're Ralph's child." Felix looked up at the stage, where Ralph had his eyes closed as he poured his heart and soul into his song. "He loves you like a daughter. You know that, don't you?"

Vanellope nodded, her throat constricting with emotion. "Yeah. And he loves TJ like a son."

"That he does," Felix agreed. "So during this week, you'd better think very carefully about where you want your relationship with TJ to go from here. Do you want him as your enemy, or as your brother?"

 _I don't want either. I just want Ralph back._ But her Ralph, her big goofy carefree Stinkbrain, was gone, replaced by a prissy flake who bought expensive suits and used moisturizer and did his nails, and she had TJ to blame for that. She glared up at TJ, who stared blankly back at her before turning his attention back to his piano. _Ralph was fine the way he was and you WRECKED him!_

"If I were you, I would choose brother," Felix continued. "Because at the end of the day, Vanellope, what makes a family is its willingness to accept new members with open arms. And if you keep crossing your arms over your chest, in the way you sometimes do, you're just blocking out all the love that you could let in just as easily."

Vanellope closed her eyes, sighed dispiritedly, and shook her head. _You just don't get it, Hammertime. Nobody does. He's Turbo's son. He'll never be my brother._ "And what if I can't?"

"Then fake it," Felix insisted. "Put on a five-star performance for Ralph and fake it for his sake. He pretended to be happy for everyone else's sake all the months you were away and he was alone. I think you can do it for a week."

" _Now the doors are closed, and the windows shut. There's no way back in, and there's no shortcut, but what can you do? Ohhh, look up and sing the Rooftop Bluuuuuuuuuuuuues—!"_

Vanellope realized that she was cornered, and that Felix was right. As Ralph and the band ended the song, she clapped along with everyone else and inwardly declared defeat. _Fine. If they want me to act, I'll act. I'll be TJ's little sister, or big sister, or whatever._ She would become part of the show too. She'd joined the stupid dance troupe, or she'd become a stagehand like Bart. She would wear an ugly dress with sequins or a weird vintage hat. If that's what she had to do to be part of Ralph's world again, she would do it.

"Nooooooooow, ladies and gentlemen," Ralph began. "To keep your feet tappin' while I'm busy tappin' into the root beer, please welcome to the stage, the Sweet Swingers!"

"YES! Dance your little hearts out! Make Daddy proud!" cried Felix as he clapped proudly and manically as the racers took the stage and started their Charleston-esque routine. Vanellope clapped politely in support as well, despite the fact that she was secretly hoping the racers would mess up and bump into each other. _The performance starts now._

* * *

TJ felt like he deserved an Oscar. There was no greater actor than someone who could act like they were riding the waves of success and having a grand old time of it when, in reality, they were hiding a big, scary secret. A really big, really scary secret.

He began to have his suspicions when, for the third day in a row, he felt sick in the morning, though he'd eaten nothing unusual at breakfast, lunch, or dinner, nor did he feel unwell in any other way. What made that morning different from the other mornings was that his Uncle Kohut walked in and caught him puking.

"I had too much to drink at Tappers last night," TJ quickly lied. He didn't want to be taken to the doctors for a checkup. He hated the Hero's Duty doctors, and the way they poked and probed at him like he was a specimen. He then, just as quickly, added, "It's not Ralph's fault. I snuck an extra root beer while he wasn't looking."

"Buddy, we talked about this," Private Kohut lectured sternly as he filled a drinking glass for TJ at the sink. "That stuff's addictive. Everything in moderation. Come on, drink this water and then we'll get you some ginger root for your stomach."

But ginger root and a glass of cold water weren't going to solve what TJ very anxiously suspected was wrong with him. He knew that biological females suffered through the same thing in the human world; he'd read about it in books and magazines. He also knew that there were tests he could buy, so that he could know for sure. But these were on the internet, and he wasn't allowed to travel around the web on his own. So he did some Google searches on his phone instead, and discovered that there were tests he could do right where he was, with substances that were right within his reach.

He did the first home chemical test with bleach, which foamed and fizzled like the website said it would. After that, he did one with vinegar, and then another one with toothpaste. Finally, he did one with sugar, and the results of this final science experiment finally confirmed his fears. They all had the same result. Yes.

 _No. I can't be. The doctors said it wouldn't happen._ But what did the Hero's Duty doctors know? He was a one-of-a-kind hybrid, with one-of-a-kind anatomy. What he had inside of him could have changed overnight, like a Cy-Bug's body could change at random depending on what they ate. _Oh, my God, it's happening to me. It's really happening to me._

 _I'm going to have a baby._

His first thought was to tell Ralph, because he'd always told Ralph everything, ever since he was little and had thoughts and ideas to share. But he quickly realized that would be like igniting a firecracker that would skyrocket and explode. Ralph would _freak,_ and break anything within his reach, either accidentally or purposely. TJ could even hear his voice, sputtering and shouting panickily. "W-What do you mean you're—?! **YOU CAN'T HAVE A BABY, YOU** _ **ARE**_ **A BABY!"**

TJ knew that what he _should_ do was tell his uncles, immediately. He spent a long time curled up in his bed, hugging his pillow to his chest as he practiced the speech in his head.

"Guys, I have something to tell you. I think I'm—" He gently pressed his hand to his still-flat abdomen "I did some tests on my own, and it looks like I might be—"

TJ, already feeling exhausted by the new burden fate had dropped on his shoulders, drifted off into a light sleep, and dreamed of red and blue and green, flashing wickedly, like a thousand pairs of judging, serpent-like eyes, in the depths of the Rock Candy Mines. _He was alone. Turbo did it all alone._ He hadn't even had any help at the end, just himself and the excruciating pain in a dirty, airless tunnel. _But he wouldn't have died alone, if no one had showed up after the cave-in. I would have died with him._

When TJ awoke, his chest felt heavy, his head felt light, and his stomach felt empty. _Maybe some tea would help. And some biscuits._

TJ, technically speaking, wasn't alone in the world like Turbo had been, but he sure did feel alone. There was no one in the arcade, or even on the internet for that matter, he could really talk to about this, no one who could give him real, practical advice. For the first time in his life, he was tempted to go visit Turbo in jail on the web, because Turbo was the only one who could answer the many questions TJ had. _Did you feel sick every day? For how long? How big did you get? When did you feel me kick? Did you ever feel me kick?_

TJ got out of bed and made his way down to the kitchen, which was, thankfully, deserted. He put the kettle on for tea and waited with his arms crossed for it to come to a boil while thoughts directed towards Turbo coursed through his head. _When I was born, why did you want to keep me so badly? You hate children. You never paid attention to the Sugar Rush racers. They told me you used to bribe them with candy to make them go away, when they were annoying you. It was their kingdom you wanted, not them. They were just unwanted extras. A blemish on your big trophy._

The kettle shrieked, and TJ slipped on oven mitts to take it off the stove. _But when I was a baby, you begged them to bring me to you. You threatened the nurses. You threatened the doctors. You threatened my uncles too, even though you didn't stand a chance against any of them. Why? Why so much effort for yet another child you never asked for? Was it because I'm your flesh and blood, and was there something more to it? Were you that desperate for some sort of family, some sort of connection to something, once you lost everything?_

TJ set cross-legged on the table with his mug of Earl Grey, comforted by the way it warmed his hands. He'd found some shortbread biscuits in a tin too and quickly wolfed those down before one of his uncles came in and caught him eating outside of the mess hall. He was surprised by how calm he felt about all of this. He didn't feel like screaming, or bursting into tears. He didn't want to punch a hole in a wall either, as Ralph might have done. Maybe he was in shock or something. Or maybe he just hadn't decided on an appropriate emotional reaction yet.

There was, however, something he decided on before he took the last swallow of his soothing hot drink, to wash down the last bite of the last cookie. _I want to keep it._

Another thought crept up on him as he threw out the tea bag and washed the mug in the sink. _They're not going to let me keep it._ He was thinking of what the Hero's Duty cast as a whole had done to Turbo, the permanent father-son separation that had been enforced for his own good. _What's going to stop them from doing the same thing to me? What if they decide taking MY baby away is for my own good too?_ TJ loved his uncles, but he also knew that, like Turbo, he wouldn't stand a chance against them once their minds were made up. _They're going to say I'm too young and not ready. But the Sarge adopted a million kids without planning for it, and they took me…_

TJ also knew that, despite all the questions he had, all the unsolved mysteries that needed closure, he still wasn't going to go visit Turbo in jail. Nothing was going to make him accept that demon into his life, especially now that he had his future child to think about.

Turbo was a walking disease. Everyone knew that, and TJ knew that too. Quickly or slowly—it depended on the dosage—he poisoned your game, your relationships, and your whole existence. He'd poisoned TJ's too, until TJ and Ralph had discovered an antidote that came in the form of BuzzTube.

When he and Ralph had paid off everyone's tabs at Tappers, they'd paid off Turbo's long outstanding one as well, which had been one of the largest. Tapper had generously offered to just cancel that one, but TJ insisted on covering it, and had counted the money out in cash from his own pocket.

"So he came here often, huh?" TJ had remarked. "Did he…talk to you a lot?"

Tapper sighed and shook his head as he accepted the money TJ handed over. "Look. You're a real nice kid, and I like ya, which is why I'm beggin' ya right now, don't ask me if there was anything good about him. I don't want to have to lie to you."

"I was going to ask if he ever talked to you about why he did the things he did," TJ said.

Tapper yanked the lid off a black marker so that he could cross out Turbo's name in his tab book with two straight, bold strokes. "Ohhhhh, he told me things alright. They all do once they have three or four root beers in them. Let me put it this way. I've been here since the arcade opened, and I've never served _anyone_ half as depressing as your old man. The guy had no family, no friends, no relationships, and no chance of ever getting 'em. The love of the players was all he had, and it was all he wanted. And when he lost that—" Tapper shrugged. "Well, you know what happened."

TJ nodded. "Yes, I do know. Thank you for your honesty." Dr. McAfee had written a whole chapter on the subject in _Rewriting the Program,_ on the dangers of characters placing too much self-worth on their popularity with the players. It stuck with him.

" _A character who hoards the trophies, medals, and other 'victory' items they obtained as an avatar is failing to understand that their relationship with the player is, and always will be, impersonal. The player, always a human with other responsibilities and obligations besides playing video games, logs off and steps away from the console to find fulfillment in their jobs and social lives, but the avatar is left in a sort of perpetual lobby room, waiting for the player to return so they can earn more trophies and medals together as a 'team.' But it is not teamwork, and it is not a friendship. It is the player who is in complete control, and it is the player who earns the rewards by puppeteering the avatar. The avatar is only attaching value to the rewards as an empty and doomed substitute for real bonding experiences…"_

"Even the twins didn't want to drink with him," Tapper added on. "I remember it perfectly. They'd come in here and look around to make sure Turbo was missing in action before sitting down for a root beer."

"What were the twins like?" Ralph had already told him about the Turbo Twins, Nitro and Velocity, who had died with the TurboTime console when it was unplugged. _They would have been my uncles._ "Were they jerks too?"

"Not as bad as Turbo. A bit on the loud and rude side, but they always paid their tab." Tapper looked at TJ closely. "You look a bit like them now. They were on the tall side too."

"Who are y _ou_ going to look like?" TJ asked as he looked down at his abdomen in front of a mirror. _More importantly, how am I going to hide you until I figure out what to do about you?_

He was going to have to give the performance of a lifetime, until he thought of a plan. He was going to have to be a better actor than Turbo had been during those fifteen years in disguise in Sugar Rush.

 _You would have loved an Oscar for THAT, huh, Turbo?_ TJ sighed and rubbed his stomach. _Maybe there's a bit of you in me after all._ He heard one of his uncles calling for him, and immediately TJ pulled his shirt down and left his room, all the while inwardly coaching himself to act normal. The performance started now.

* * *

 **End of Chapter**

* * *

Listen. If Fairly Odd Parents is allowed to do this shit in their storylines, then so am I. Please leave reviews!


	8. Chapter 8

I'm so, so, _so_ sorry this took so long. I've been so busy with work lately, and I've had such bad writer's block. I rewrote this chapter what had to be four or five times. Thank you for waiting for so patiently. Enjoy.

* * *

 **Rewriting the Program:** **Chapter Eight  
Dance Numbers and Game Plans**

* * *

"So you can't come in today?" Mr. Litwak asked over the phone.

"No. I'm really sorry. I really don't feel well." Stephanie didn't sound well either. The arcade owner could _hear_ the misery in his young employee's voice. "I threw up twice this morning. I-I think it might be a bug, or stomach flu."

"Alright. I don't need to know the details." Poor girl. She needed to stay home. He needed her to stay home too. If it was stomach flu, he couldn't risk it spreading around the arcade and making all the kids sick. "You just rest and take care, Stephanie."

"I will. Thank you, Mr. Litwak." Mr. Litwak hung up. Stephanie, who was sitting on the edge of the tub in the tiny bathroom she shared with her siblings, looked around with rising fear at all the store-bought pregnancy tests she had lined up on every surface.

"They have to be negative," Stephanie told herself, jiggling her leg anxiously as she waited for the results to show. "Robbie and I used protection. They _have_ to be."

"What a shame," Mr. Litwak thought a little sadly as he tapped some keys on his computer. He'd been planning on holding a staff meeting that day, to announce that he was giving everyone a raise. He would have liked Stephanie to be present, as he was very fond of her, but it wouldn't be fair to the others to put it off. He valued all his employees. They all deserve to profit from what seeming to be an almost biblical resurrection of appreciation for old-fashioned gaming.

Business at the arcade was booming. They hadn't been this busy since the eighties, during the first few years. They were booked solid for birthday parties. Even a high-end insurance firm had called to ask if they could host their annual office party there. Good lord, an office party at an arcade! For insurance brokers! What was going on? Everyone seemed to have a different answer.

"Well, the world sucks so hard right now, and video games are like…an escape," one young man in his twenties had told him. "For an hour or two you get to be a hero in a fantasy world, instead of a barista with thirty thousand dollars of student debt who gets yelled at about almond milk."

Fair enough.

"We've had to tighten the purse strings at home," was a mother of four's explanation. "Trips to an arcade are cheaper than a Nintendo Switch or a trip to Disneyland."

That made sense too. Mr. Litwak had balked when she told him how much a Nintendo Switch cost. His Nana would have boxed his ears if he had even dared to ask for one. Some of the game consoles he was presently browsing online and considering for purchase were cheaper.

"Cindy just wants to play that game," one father had said, pointing at his nine-year-old, who was standing in line and waiting for her turn to play Fix-It Felix Jr. "She loves Ralph and TJ. _Especially_ TJ. Do you know if there's a game with him in it? She's been begging for one."

There was not. Mr. Litwak had been looking, but he couldn't even find a second Fix-It Felix Jr. console, to cut the perpetual lineup of "Ralph and TJ" fans in half. They were all snatched up before he could even make a bid or place an order. He himself had been approached a dozen times already, with offers for the console he did have. He'd turned them all down. He wouldn't sell Fix-It Felix Jr. for the world. It had a special place in his heart, and no price was high enough. It had been there when the arcade opened, and it would be there when the arcade closed. God willing, that would not be for many, many years.

"Speaking of Ralph and TJ…" Mr. Litwak quickly checked the popular duo's BuzzzTube channel. Still no new videos. Another shame. He'd enjoyed that catchy "bad guys" song of theirs, as well as the rest of their output. The chat box was swarming with annoyed and disappointed commenters.

" _Worst hiatus ever. I need Ralph and TJ in my life."_

" _Where are they?!"_

" _Are they working on new songs?"_

" _I miss my boys!"_

" _Raf and TJ come BAAAAAAAAACK."_

" _Who doesn't love a bad guy? More like who doesn't SEE a bad guy! Where are you, Ralph?"_

" _They must be trapped in Polybius or something."_

" _Or maybe they had a freak paintball accident."_

" _Robbie, I need to talk to you,"_ Stephanie hurriedly text her boyfriend. On the other side of the door, her younger half-brother angrily jigged the doorknob and banged on the door's hard surface. _"It's really important. Can you get away from work?"_

"Steph, quick hogging the can! I gotta go!" the young boy yelled.

"Go somewhere else!" Stephanie yelled back. Already on the verge of tears, her voice cracked. "Go outside!"

" _ **DAD!**_ Stephanie's hogging the bathroom and I don't wanna pee in the bushes like an animal!"

Stephanie pinched the bridge of her nose in dismay. _Shut up, shut up, shut up._

"There's nothing wrong with peeing in the bushes," Stephanie's father called from his armchair. His injured leg was resting on a cushion. "Leave your sister alone. She has to get ready for work."

But Stephanie couldn't go to work. She had to talk to Robbie. She had to tell him what was going on. They needed a game plan. _Answer me. Answer me. Answer me._ At last, her phone vibrated with Robbie's reply.

" _Steph?! R u ok?! What's wrong?! What's happened?!"_

The worst possible thing, that's what happened. Stephanie looked at her collection of pregnancy tests. Positive. All positive. Every single one. _"Can you meet me in the park?"_ she quickly texted. Then, she just as quickly changed her mind. That was the scene of the crime.

" _I mean the video game store. Meet me at GameStop in an hour."_ That was where they had first met.

 _"I can't get away right now. I'll meet you after work."_ Stephanie groaned. He had no idea, _no_ idea, how urgent this was. She would have go to hide in the public library until he could see her. Her little brother blew a raspberry at her when she finally opened the bathroom door, after carefully disposing of the evidence, and he sprayed her face with spittle. Downstairs, she could hear her Dad and her stepmother arguing, as they often did, and her three-year-old half-sister bawling. The teenage arcade worker blinked back her tears as she pulled on her jacket and swept out the door.

 _I don't want this. I really don't want this. I'm not ready for this._ She was nearly knocked over by two reckless kids scooting by on skateboards. "Hey, watch it!" she shouted back at them. "You're gonna hurt someone!"

"Vanellope, keep up!" Taffyta spat furiously at her fellow racer-turned-dancer. "That spin was two seconds too late!"

"So's your last brain cell, Taffyta!" Vanellope spat back.

In the Sugar Rush castle's pink, white, and opulent ballroom, TJ jabbed a button on the stereo to turn it off and bring "Sing, Sing, Sing" to a complete halt, halt, halt. "Guys, _stop."_

"She started it!" Vanellope cried.

"She should have learned the choreography by now!" Taffyta exclaimed back.

TJ sighed tiredly as he made his way over to the feuding girls. This was the third time in the last hour he'd had to intervene.

"Taffyta, you need to chill," he stated firmly. "Vanellope, watch me."

The hybrid expertly demonstrated for Vanellope the spin that Taffyta had so ruthlessly criticized. "Just lean back on your heel a bit more. Try again."

Vanellope did so, while begrudgingly following TJ's advice. "See? That's way better." He looked at the other racers. "Do you guys want to start from the top?"

"TJ, can you partner me? Gloyd has two left feet," Crumbelina whined.

"I do not!" Gloyd snapped. "You have no rhythm!"

"Crumbs, Gloyd, cease fire. No one has two left feet, and everyone here has rhythm. Here…" TJ gently guided Crumbelina towards Minty. "You two try being partners. Gloyd, you try dancing with Jubs."

Vanellope frowned. It was just like the King Candy days. Go here, go there, do this, do that, shut up. And what was this "Crumbs" and "Jubs" baloney? When did TJ get so chummy with them all?

"Friendly reminder to all of you, this is supposed to be fun," TJ sternly reprehended his brood of almost-cousins as he reached out to fix Minty's bow, which had fallen lopsided during the rough-and-tumble rehearsal. He then moved on to Adorabeezle, whose laces on her new dance shoes had come undone. He knelt to retie them. "We're not going to fixate on getting the moves perfect or beating out the other dancers. It's just like Dr. McAfee says—"

Vanellope groaned internally. TJ was always quoting that doctor lady who'd been on Yesss's show. The one who'd written that book…what was it called? Rewiring the something. A load of therapist mumbo jumbo that TJ found interesting for some reason. Yawn. It was worse than when Butcher Boy watched a new TED Talk that he found "inspiring" and wouldn't stop yapping about it.

"—high scores are for the players, not for the characters," TJ finished as he let go of Adorabeezle's foot. He pushed himself back onto his feet. "Same goes with BuzzzTube. The numbers of hearts you get doesn't matter."

"That's easy for you to say! You got forty million!" Rancis pointed out. The others muttered and agreed. Vanellope pressed her lips together, stared down at her feet, and said nothing.

"You screeching circus monkeys would be lucky to get one heart," she thought irritably. Then, she added under her breath, "And it's not like you've got any right now." The racers were still as nasty as ever, despite Felix and Sergeant Calhoun's well-intentioned efforts at implanting a conscience in them. They wouldn't even let her race as an avatar again, even though the players kept asking for her and even on occasion outright abandoned their game when she didn't appear on the screen as a choice. They saw her racing as an NPC, and they wanted her. Like, hello, did the gumballs for brains _want_ the game to get unplugged again?

TJ managed a wry smile. "That…was a happy surprise. Someone's probably going to beat that record someday." Just like how someone had beat his record in Xtreme Paintball. TJ had been a touch disappointed when Champ told him that a kid with spiky green hair had hit 215 points in Lightning Round, but he wasn't about to rush into the game and shoot obsessively at targets until he was on top again. He had too many other things to worry about. "Ralph and I had fun while we were making our videos. That's the important part. Now, everyone get in position, please."

For Vanellope, being part of the Sweet Swingers was everything _but_ fun. She was finding, much to her frustration, that she wasn't as naturally gifted at swing dancing as she was at racing. Swing dancing required teamwork, which wasn't her strong point, and letting other people touch her and toss her around, which _definitely_ wasn't her strong point. When she first joined the troupe, she'd been partnered up with Gloyd, who'd scowled about it, then botched it with his half-baked effort. When he tried to flip her, they both went crashing to the floor, and that was the end of that. She'd had no luck with Swizzle and Rancis either, and both had wormed their way out of dancing with her with bogus excuses.

Her partner now was Candlehead, who was too much of a dope to bring politics into the routine. All she was worried about was Taffyta not getting mad at her for messing up, so she didn't complain about being paired up with the former runaway president, at least. The green-haired girl put one hand on Vanellope's waist, and another on her shoulder. Vanellope did the same to her, while fighting off the old urge to reach up and knock the candle off.

"Everyone ready?" TJ asked. "Hit it, Bill! A five, six, seven, eight!" Sour Bill, silent and sullen on the sidelines as always, restarted the music, and away they went, twirling, spinning, throwing around their arms, kicking out their legs in time to the beat, clapping their hands, shaking their hips, and all the other retro, dorky, old-timey stuff that was so hot to trot right now.

Vanellope might have enjoyed it a little more if her ditzy partner didn't keep going _"Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!"_ every time Vanellope spun her. Half of the glitchy racer's attention was on TJ, who was swinging hard and fast with an utterly delighted Snowanna, by far the most skilled and able Sweet Swinger, with quick feet and the soul of disco embedded in her code. TJ spun her, flipped her, dipped her, threw her over his head, and pulled her between his legs as if she weighed nothing.

Snowanna was beaming and giggling all the while, and Vanellope felt a pinch of jealousy, which she instantly dismissed as ridiculous. _I don't want to dance with TJ, no matter how good he is. I don't._ She did the big spin correctly this time, and Taffyta seemed satisfied.

They finished the routine without any major blunders, and TJ went around with minor constructive criticisms. "Crumbs, don't watch your feet so much." "Swizzle, duck a bit lower when Taffyta jumps over your head." "Rancis, you don't need to keep reaching up to fix your hair…" Vanellope waited for TJ to tear into her performance, but all he said was, "Nice work, Vanellope, but…smile a bit more."

As if she could! Vanellope wiped her sweaty forehead with her sleeve. _Remember, you're doing this for Ralph. He needs better background dancers than this bucket of turds._ Hopefully, her efforts would be worth it. Hopefully, Ralph would notice how hard she was working.

"I think we've all earned a break," TJ remarked as patted his flushed face and neck with a towel. "Let's take ten, guys."

Sour Bill and a few other castle servants brought out tea and cookies and other sugary snacks for the practicing dancers, and they hungrily attacked the spread. Much to Vanellope's surprise, TJ declined the food on offer, for once, and went off to the washroom instead.

"Nobody kill each other while I'm gone," he warned the racers. He pointed. "Taffyta, Vanellope, that means you two."

At a rosy pink, sugar-marble sink, TJ gulped down a nausea pill and splashed some cold water on his face and neck. He looked at himself in the mirror, at his splotched cheeks, at his dark, damp hair, some strands of which stuck to his cheekbones, now sharper and more refined than they once were. He had recently ditched his glasses and switched to contacts. His yellow eyes were alert and bright from the exercise. They looked almost golden. It was a very different face than the one he'd resented so much as a kid. He had changed. He _was_ changing.

His new habit, when he was alone, was to reach down and touch his stomach. He wasn't showing yet, but his middle now had a strange hardness when he pressed his hand against it. _So far, so good. Nobody's noticed anything._ The racers didn't notice anything beyond their own immediate wants and petty squabbles, which was all well and good for him, though, unfortunately, not so good for Vanellope. But she wasn't the one expecting, though.

He had a game plan…sort of. It consisted mainly of hiding his pregnancy until he couldn't anymore and begging his uncles, and the Sergeant, to let him keep it. It was a bad plan, he knew, but it was the only one he had. He'd read online that he waited a certain number of weeks, they wouldn't be able to make him…get rid of it, without putting his life in danger, so…

Taffyta's snide voice intruded his thought bubble from the other room. "So what's the dress code in Slaughter Race, _Vanellope?_ Garbage bags? Roadkill?"

"No one goes around looking like an unbought Barbie Doll from the reject bin. I can tell you that much, _Taffyta."_

TJ sighed and rubbed at his temples. _Is this what parenting is going to be like?_ He'd offered to help the Sweet Swingers with their act as a way of getting away from Hero's Duty and away from his uncles' watchful eyes. He was being praised for his "generosity" and "patience," but keeping up the latter was becoming increasingly difficult.

To end the quarrel before it could get started, TJ got straight to business as soon as he returned, clapping his hands together as he loudly addressed the Sweet Swingers. "Alright, guys, everyone form two lines of eight! We're going to do some warmup before we start again!" The racers, shockingly, did as they were told, and organized themselves as instructed. Vanellope took her place between Rancis and Candlehead.

"Ready?" The racers nodded.

TJ began to stretch, and they dutifully copied. "Arms up. Arms down. Arms up, arms down. Sweep the arms uuuuuuuuuup. Sweep the arms doooooooown. Now left arm, now right arm, now left, now right, left, right, left, right…"

"Ow!" Vanellope cried as she got walloped in the face by Rancis's left hand. The little smirk on the boy racer's face all but admitted that it wasn't an accident.

"Rancis, I saw that!" TJ called out. "Go stand in the corner! You can rejoin us when you're ready to be professional!"

Sulking, Rancis crept off for his timeout. "Are you okay?" TJ asked Vanellope. Vanellope nodded wordlessly. "Alright. Now, guys, again. Left arm, right arm, over the head, reach oooooooooover the head, let's get a good streeeeeeeetch…"

"Evenin,' fellas! No gingerbread man to catch today?" Ralph greeted Wynchel and Duncan at the castle's front doors as he swept past them. TJ was leading the racers through jumping jacks with military-esque precision when Ralph exuberantly burst through the doors.

" _ **HEY-OOOOOOO!**_ Where are my two best buddies?!"

" _ **RALPH!"**_ It felt like a rescue, and Vanellope at once dashed over to the wrecker and jumped into his arms. Ralph laughed and placed her on his shoulder, on her rightful spot.

"Well, there's one!" Ralph tickled her with his finger, and Vanellope giggled happily for the first time that day. "And there's the other one! Twiggy Jiggy! I've got great news!"

TJ opened his mouth. "No, I don't have a girlfriend." TJ closed his mouth. Ralph clapped his hands together and rubbed them in excited anticipation. "I just got off the phone with Yesss. Do you remember that movie we saw at Netflix?"

TJ raised an eyebrow and placed a hand on his hip. "You mean the period drama about that famous painter that made you cry like a lost kid in a grocery store at the end? Oh, yeah, I totally remember it. So does everyone else in the theatre, probably." The racers giggled at that.

Ralph reddened slightly. "No, no, not _that_ one! The other one! With the cartoon characters and the scary psycho guy with the acid machine!"

TJ blinked. "Who Framed Roger Rabbit? What about it?"

"Wellllllll…." And here Ralph grinned like a kid with a secret they were about to share at a slumber party. "OhMyDisney is holding a huge forties-themed shindig to celebrate it's thirtieth anniversary, BuzzzTube's gonna broadcast it, and _you and I_ are gonna be there as the guest singers! It's the event of the year, and they're begging on their knees for us, buddy! Isn't it great?! But that's not all—"

Ralph turned to the racers. "Your Uncle Ralph put in a good word for you, and there just _might_ be chance that you'll be performing there too, as background dancers. How's that for a worldwide debut, Sweet Swingers?"

The racers collectively gasped, and started jumping up and down, squealing and hugging each other.

"We're gonna dance at Disney!"

"We're gonna meet princesses and superheroes!"

"We're gonna meet Kermit!"

"We're gonna be stars!"

"I hope you didn't sign them up for an ugly live-action movie too," Vanellope joked into Ralph's ear. The bad guy sniggered, and, with a self-congratulatory smile still slapped on his face, he turned to TJ to see his reaction.

TJ wasn't smiling.

TJ wasn't pleased. In fact, he looked the very opposite of pleased.

Ralph stared at his show partner and friend, puzzled by his lack of elation. "TJ?" he inquired. "What's up? Aren't you psyched?"

"I would be if we'd talked this through first," TJ said. "My uncles haven't agreed. You're supposed to ask them."

The ballroom fell silent. The racers stopped jumping and stared at the vexed teen.

Ralph, oblivious to the sudden tension, waved a hand dismissively. "Awww, don't sweat it, kid, they'll agree once we explain—"

"I don't agree," TJ cut in, crossing his arms. "I said I didn't want to do public BuzzzTube gigs for a while. Just private ones, here at the arcade. Did you forget?"

"I didn't forget!" Ralph protested. "But Yesss said—" Ralph picked up Vanellope by the waist and placed her down gently on the floor. "Yesss said that this would be a good opportunity—"

"—for you. A good opportunity for _you."_ Vanellope had been back at Litwak's long enough to know that this was one of TJ's mood swings coming into effect. It had something to do with "horn-moans" or whatever it was called. "You shouldn't have agreed to anything without me present. We're supposed to be partners. It's Ralph and TJ, not Ralph _plus_ TJ."

The racers all side-eyed each other uncomfortably. Vanellope, on the other end, felt a delighted glimmer of hope at seeing Ralph and TJ argue. _Uh oh! Trouble in paradise!_

Ralph's clingy side hadn't fully died with Virus-Ralphzilla, it seemed. Yup, there it was, the panic. The panic that Vanellope knew so well, the one that started in his eyes and sank its way down to a quivering mouth that gaped open like a fish. TJ wasn't happy with him. TJ was losing interest. TJ wasn't being the perfect friend anymore. And Ralph was scared.

"We _are_ Ralph and TJ!" the bad guy stammered. "I-I only thought—"

"—that I'll go wherever I'm told to go, perform whenever I'm asked to perform, no questions asked?" TJ snapped.

"NO!" Ralph cried. "I wouldn't! I would never…!"

"You _literally_ just did."

"I didn't!" The wrecker paused. "Wait, what does 'literally' mean, again?"

TJ angrily turned on his heel and stormed off. Ralph at once bolted after him.

"TJ! Buddy! Twiggy Jiggy! I'm sorry!" TJ threw open the doors leading out to a balcony. Right before Ralph could stop him, he stepped out and took fight on his shimmering green Cybug wings. _**"TJ!"**_

"Ralph, wait!" Vanellope cried as Ralph charged out of the ballroom, with the clear intention of giving chase. He knocked several Oreo guards out of his way and sent Wynchel flying into the Butterscotch pudding moat, which Taffyta had recently installed, in his desperate pursuit of the hybrid.

"Does this mean we're not gonna dance for BuzzzTube?" Candlehead asked sadly. The other racers looked distraught as well. They'd gotten their hopes up for nothing. The princesses, the superheroes, the Muppets, international stardom…it wouldn't happen without TJ. They needed him.

Vanellope shrugged. "I'm sure we still can. I mean, I've got connections there too."

"Oh, I'm sure you do," Taffyta snapped sarcastically as she snatched up her pink towel and pulled it around her shoulders like a shawl. She haughtily stamped off, followed closely as usual by Rancis and Candlehead. The other Sweet Swingers began to disperse as well, until Vanellope was left alone in the empty, silent ballroom. The rehearsal was over.

At least it was for everyone else. Vanellope decided that she might as well take advantage of the free time and space. She wanted…no, she _needed_ to become the best dancer in the group, just as she'd become the best racer in no time at all. Her friendship with Ralph depended on it.

She clicked on the stereo. "Sing, Sing, Sing," began to play, and Vanellope began to dance, dance, dance, hell-bent on getting every step perfect. _If TJ wants to be a big whiny diva, let him._ Vanellope's phone rang and she didn't notice it, even though Shank's name and picture flashed on the screen. _I'll be Ralph's new show partner if it all falls through, and he won't regret it._

In Slaughter Race, Shank shook her head mournfully as she regarded her unanswered phone. "V, it was only supposed to be a week," she said quietly to herself. Her young friend was setting herself up for disaster with this obsessive Ralph-centric campaign of hers. She shouldn't have let her go back.

As he soared across Sugar Rush's grand expanse, TJ felt momentarily at peace. The open sky, the sunshine, the soft and inviting colors, the perfume of vanilla and fresh baking that permeated the air. Below, the ant-like figure of Ralph racing, and tripping, after him was nothing, as were the moving dots that made up the citizens.

It was a pleasant change from Hero's Duty, where there was no sunshine. And he could fly around freely, without worrying about one of the marines mistaking him for a regular Cybug and firing at him. For the heck of it, he did a few swooping circles and loop-de-loops, just to get them out of his system, before landing on the rooftop of the kart factory. He was counting on Beard Papa being on his thirteenth or fourteenth nap of the day and not detecting him on the security cameras.

Once settled, the hybrid pulled his knees to his chest and hugged himself tight as the bad feelings settled back in again too. "I want to be a kid again. I hate this," he thought to himself. He'd gotten less than half a year to be happy and carefree, playing paintball and making corny videos and writing songs about video games.

Now, he was secretly pregnant, and he felt exhausted, and he'd just run away from his best friend, and the prospect of singing at the anniversary party of one of the world's most popular and iconic movies didn't excite him as it once would have. How did it come to this? Where did his life go?

It wasn't long before Ralph caught up with him. "TJ!" he shouted from the ground up. "Don't move! Don't fly away! I just wanna talk to ya!"

He began to climb. TJ considered flying off, but he didn't. "Leave me alone, Ralph," he wanted to say. But he didn't.

"I'm sorry I booked a gig without you!" Ralph said frantically and immediately when he reached the rooftop. "I'm so, so, so, _so,_ sorry!"

"Throw in another 'so' and I'll consider forgiving you," TJ joked dryly.

"I raise you. I'm so, _so_ sorry." Ralph crawled over to where TJ was sitting and plunked himself down right next to him. "We don't have to do _anything_ that you don't wanna do. I'll call Yesss right now and call off the whole thing. Whatever you want."

"I don't want to do gigs where we'll be filmed," TJ said firmly.

"Are you…feeling self-conscious?" Ralph asked concernedly. "Is it…body image issues?" He'd recently read (and by _read_ that meant lightly skimmed) a pamphlet on parenting a teenager.

TJ rested his hand on his stomach. "Something like that," he uttered quietly. The marines hadn't noticed, the racers hadn't noticed, Ralph hadn't yet noticed…but the BuzzzTuber viewers were going to notice. They noticed everything. Every small, microscopic detail, because they watched the videos over and over again. In his and Ralph's video "Brick Dominoes," one of his socks had been inside out, and he hadn't even known until hundreds of internet strangers pointed it out. _"Hey TJ guess which Pixar movie your left sock is."_ They really had no lives, did they?

"Well, at least you don't have this baggage." Ralph slapped his own hefty gut. TJ said nothing. "Do you want to talk about it?"

And here TJ's voice of reason piped up, like an undiscovered member of the choir who'd been systematically ignored due to prejudice. _Tell him. Tell him, you idiot. He's your best friend. He's been there for you since you were a baby._

"Ralph…" TJ began.

"Yes?" Ralph asked.

TJ swallowed a nervous lump in his throat. "I'm…"

"Robbie, I'm…" Stephanie glanced around to make sure nobody in the video game store was nearby or listening. She leaned forward and whispered into his ear. Robbie's eyes shot open.

"Shit," the teenage boy let slip. He stared at Stephanie in horror. "Shit, shit, _shit!_ What are we gonna do?!"

"I don't know!" Stephanie threw herself into Robbie's arms and began to weep helplessly into his shoulder as he held her tight, in that store surrounded by all the games they both loved so much.

"We'll get through this, Steph," he said, rubbing her back consolingly. Back at Stephanie's workplace, back at Litwak's Arcade, Ralph reached out and tenderly brushed some wayward black bangs off of TJ's face.

"Whatever it was, I'm here for you," the wrecker said. "Whatever's bothering you, I'll help you through it. We're partners, kid. That's what partners do."

TJ shook his head. _You can't stop my uncles if they decide I'd be better off not being a Dad._ They wouldn't give him a choice. It wouldn't be as easy as turning down a gig. He needed to wait until it was safe. Ralph would understand, when the time did come to tell him.

"I'm…tired. I'm just tired, Ralph. I need a break." Sergeant Calhoun would have called him a yellow-bellied craven for such a cop-out.

"Then we'll take a break!" Ralph exclaimed. "No gigs, no videos, no nothin.' And no Roger Rabbit party, either. Just smooth sailin' and _chillaxing_ from here on out. See, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

He had no idea.

* * *

 **End of Chapter**

* * *

Again, I am so, so, so, so sorry this took so long to update. Say you forgive me in the reviews. Also, I know that "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" is technically thirty-one years old, but...this is fanfiction. Let it be.


	9. Chapter 9

Time to self-indulge in some crossover nonsense.

Olaf and Chuck from Angry Birds are voiced by the same guy (Josh Gad) so I thought it would be hilarious to make them frenemies, since they can canonically know each other in this universe. Also, I stole a joke from Gravity Falls.

* * *

 **Rewriting the Program:** **Chapter Nine  
Meals Shared and Bonds Forged**

* * *

"Izzy! Wait for me! Tell 'em to wait!"

"Olaf, hurry up!" The cartoonish snowman practically dove onto the bus, and the Animal Crossing character helped to him feet so he could show the driver his bus pass.

"Every single day!" Isabelle cried in exasperation as she and Olaf took their usual seats. "You need to learn to be _prompt!"_

"I'm a singing snowman, not a secretary! have no concept of time!" Olaf reached into his backpack and pulled out a cognitive behavioral therapy textbook, which he promptly began studying hurriedly. Isabelle huffed in disapproval.

"And you didn't do the reading either! Honestly, Olaf, when you said you wanted to be a therapist for the princesses, I actually believed for a minute that you were serious about it!"

"I am serious about it!" Olaf protested to his classmate. He then brought his voice down to a whisper. "They need one reeeeeeeeeeally badly. Have you ever heard their 'important water' spiel? It's reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally unsettling."

The bus stopped by the Indie Games District, and an anthropomorphic yellow bird climbed aboard. "Chuck, please tell me _you_ did the reading," Isabelle begged the Angry Birds character as he took a seat across from her and Olaf.

"Of course! What do you take me for? Also, once again, if _anyone_ from my game asks, I'm at a spinning class." Angry Birds already had a therapist onsite, but Chuck had enrolled in Firewall College anyway, to try his own hand, or wing, at it. He was being secretive about it because he didn't want to hurt Matilda's feelings.

"You're certainly good at spinning lies," Olaf commented without looking up from his textbook. He and Chuck had a sort of ongoing feud, which had started at the beginning of the semester when everyone had gone to an internet café after class and they'd gotten into a rather heated argument (ironically) regarding an essay on repressed emotions Dr. McAfee had them all read. In fact, it got so heated that Olaf had practically melted, and Chuck had certainly lived up to his Angry Bird status, for once. They probably would have been asked to leave, if such intense discourse wasn't considered customary in most internet cafés.

Chuck's response to Olaf's snark was to pull a slingshot and a marble out of his own backpack, take aim, and knock the textbook right out of the snowman's stick hands. _**"HEY!"**_

"You two are _children!"_ Isabelle cried out as she caught the bouncing marble in her paw before it could roll out of sight. She was immensely relieved when the bus finally pulled into the Anti-Virus District and they could all get off.

The McAfee building was a two-storey, red brick structure in the shape of its shield logo, bordered entirely by a barrier of flames, which were harmful only to viruses and potential hackers. Everyone else, be it common NetUsers, Netizens, or video game characters, could pass through the flames just fine, without obtaining so much as a first-degree burn. Olaf never seemed to tire of the joke that a snowman could touch fire without melting.

"Ohhhhhhhhh, what a world! What a world!" he cried theatrically as he pretended to die in the blaze. Both Isabelle and Chuck rolled their eyes as they walked right past him. Dr. McAfee's other students began to arrive and stream in as well, calling out greetings to each other, linking arms, chattering, and falling in line with the NetUsers as they entered the building through it's fiery surroundings, into its safety-providing sphere.

"Have a good class, buddy. I'll pick you up later," Spamley told Gord as he dropped him off. The littler, turtlenecked Netizen had his own psychology textbook tucked under one arm, and he waved goodbye to his partner with the grossly extended other one as Spamley flew off in their kart. Then, he too passed through Firewall's flames.

On the first floor of Dr. McAfee's building, NetUsers downloaded and installed anti-virus and security products at self-serve counters. On the second floor, Dr. McAfee ran her clinic for dealing with the one "virus" her site's products couldn't vanquish: mental health problems. It doubled as her classroom as well.

"Good afternoon, Isabelle, Chuck, Olaf, Hugh, Melania, Karol, Polenski, Samson, Gord—" She greeted her students in a friendly, familiar manner as they entered one by one and took their usual seats. "—Bean, LuLu, Alto, Cupcake, Isaac, Felicia…oh, is Venus not coming today?"

"Her game's being patched," spoke a small, toy-like, squeaky-voiced green Martian with yellow bug-like eyes. "I'll lend her my notes."

"Very good." The last batch of the students scurried in, and soon the classroom was full, save the one absence. "Hello, everyone. Let's begin. Please turn your textbooks to page fifty-seven. I trust you all did the reading I assigned?"

Chuck coughed and side-eyed Olaf. Olaf glared back at him.

The luminary, red-skinned psychiatrist took up her chalk and began to write on the blackboard. "Today's class focuses on 'Reluctance and Resistance.' Now, who can tell me one of the patterns of behaviour a new patient typically exhibits? Yes, Isabelle?"

"Adverse to communication," Isabelle said, lowering her raised arm. "Patient will evade questions related to the disturbing changes in their life."

"Very good. Anyone else?"

"Impatience and shortened temper," the Martian said. "The patient is obsessed with the disturbing change and is constantly troubled by it."

"Can anyone give me an example of the sort of disruptive changes your future patients may face?"

"An unwanted upgrade to their game," Chuck spoke up.

Dr. McAfee gave a little nod. "Yes. Good."

"A friend or colleague transferring to another game or website," Olaf said quickly, having just recently absorbed that point on the bus. "Especially if the patient comes from a close-knit world with a limited network of family and friends."

"Yes. Excellent." Olaf stuck his tongue out at Chuck while the doctor-teacher's back was turned.

"As a therapist, the key to success with your patient is building a relationship of trust," Dr. McAfee began as she casually strolled through the aisle between the desks. The students furiously scribbled down notes as she talked. "They come to you voluntarily, they share their distresses voluntarily, and whether or not they accept your counsel is entirely voluntary as well. No information should be given under pressure or duress. That's called torture. And you must _not_ insist that there will be immediate, distant, or divine consequences if your counsel isn't heeded. That's called a confessional."

Her students tittered at that.

"There is, of course, the unequal balance of power, and the responsibility you have as a counsellor, to provide reassurance and sound advice, to an easily influenced, _very vulnerable_ mind…" As she made her way back towards the front of her classroom, she snatched up a folded piece of paper that Chuck had been trying to discreetly pass to Isabelle. She unfolded it and read aloud to the class, "Do you think 'Frozen' is a mediocre movie? Check one box. Yes. Definitely. Absolutely."

The class burst into childish snickering. "You rigged that!" Olaf exclaimed, outraged.

"If criticizing films is what you'd all prefer to do, I can give you directions to Rotten Tomatoes, and bus tokens as well," Dr. McAfee said coolly as she handed the shame-faced Angry Bird back the paper. "But in _my_ classroom, we take the mental health epidemic on the web _seriously._ "

"Sorry, ma'am," Chuck said quickly. "I was just joking."

Dr. McAfee nodded. "Yes. You were just joking. I suppose you'd give that same answer if you were a YouTuber or BuzzzTuber and your username was something like…say… BirdIsTheWord22." She gave her student a hard, pointed look, very much like a school principal's damning stare. "Show some maturity, Chuck."

Chuck nodded frantically, trying to save face in the renowned psychiatrist's eyes. "Yes ma'am. Sorry again, ma'am."

Dr. McAfee cleared her throat. "Now, where was I? Oh, yes, as I was saying…" One full lecture, one long class discussion, one in-class group assignment, and one quick pop quiz later, Dr. McAfee dealt out the homework and the next batch of pages to be read and declared class dismissed.

"I will see you all on Monday. Have a good weekend. Oh, and please don't forget to write in your dream journals."

"I'm _dying_ for a cup of coffee!" Isabelle exclaimed loudly as the psychology students all gathered up their things.

"A hot chocolate would hit the spot too," Olaf added.

"And some poppyseed cake," Chuck put in, licking his beak hungrily. At last, they all agreed on something. "Let's go to the café!"

"Do you want to join us, doctor?" Isabelle asked politely, approaching the psychiatrist's desk.

Dr. McAfee shook her head in a polite refusal. "I have dinner plans already. But all of you go ahead and enjoy yourselves." She shot a warning look at Chuck and Olaf, who both froze (pun not intended) under her steadied scrutiny. "And _play nice,_ if you can."

As usual, there was a steady stream of NetUsers flooding Food Network Dot Com. They were all going in to browse for good recipes or binge-watch episodes of Chopped or Cutthroat Kitchen. But Dr. McAfee, as she fell in step with them in her clickety red high-heeled pumps, had a different evening in store altogether. She was meeting her soon-to-be ex-husband, Franklin Grammarly, for dinner. She wasn't dreading it as much as one would expect to dread socializing with their ex, as she and Frank were making a strong, almost heroic effort to remain friends, but as she climbed the tall flight of stairs leading to the site's public dining section, she couldn't help but feel her mood sink a little. Her crimson glow dimmed a little as well, as if someone had reached out and turned her dial.

The restaurant Frank had chosen for their meeting was one they both knew well, one they had frequented often back when they were still an item. He was as picky with his food as he was with punctuation, prepositions, and conjunctions. He disdained an overcooked steak as much as he disdained the misusage of a semi-colon.

"They still haven't fixed the errors on this menu," he characteristically commented as soon as Dr. McAfee arrived, led to the table by the Netizen host. She imagined Frank had gotten there early, and had switched tables three times before settling on the present one. By the pained, tired look on the host's face, she could tell her assumption was correct.

"Hello to you too, Frank," she replied civilly as she settled down into her seat across from him. He didn't even look up at her. His bespectacled eyes were still on the offending menu.

"It's supposed to be 'fish _with_ cream sauce,' not 'fish _in_ cream sauce.' The sauce is smothered on top of the fish. It does not surround the fish." At last he put the menu down and faced her. "I must have told them a hundred times. A hyperbole, of course, but enough times to get the point across, don't you agree?"

Dr. McAfee gave an amused and knowing little smile at that as she picked up her own menu to scan it quickly. "Yes, I agree."

The host promised that a waiter would be over soon to take their orders, and seemed glad to make their escape. After they'd left, Dr. McAfee asked her husband, "So how are you, Frank? How's work?"

Frank shrugged. "It's essay season, so what do you think? An avalanche of unoriginal, uninspired papers on Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Sylvia Plath, Karl Marx, _Heart of Darkness,_ and Ernest Hemingway, all composed without even the most basic understanding of English grammar."

Dr. McAfee put her menu aside. "And that's why your site has record-breaking traffic."

Frank sighed and shook his head disdainfully as he tapped his long typist's fingers on the table. "God help me. I will go mad if I have to read another weak analysis on how 'The Old Man and the Sea' has Christian imagery." He reached out for a piece of bread in the basket. "No offense to your patients."

Dr. McAfee shrugged. None of her patients were present in that restaurant. "If a tree falls over and no one is around to hear it—"

Frank winced. "No clichés, Cherry. I'm begging you." Dr. McAfee smiled again and started buttering her bread.

"Interesting story about Ernest Hemingway," the grammar-centric Netizen began as he broke his own bread into little bite-sized pieces, yet another strange quirk of his wife had grown accustomed to. "Once, while lunching out with friends, they challenged him to craft an entire story in only six words, the wager being one hundred dollars, ten from each friend present. Hemingway, having confidently accepted the challenge, wrote on his napkin, 'For sale, baby shoes, never worn.' Needless to say, he won the bet."

Dr. McAfee put down her butter knife, now frowning. That was a fun fact she would have preferred not to know. "Frank, I deal with tragedy from morning to night. Can I _please_ have a break from it for one evening? I'm begging _you."_ She took a large, hungry bite of her buttered bread.

The waiter appeared. Dr. McAfee ordered the stuffed red peppers with potatoes. Franklin Grammarly ordered the seafood pasta and made it _very clear_ to the waiter which types of fish he wanted to see in the bowl and which types of fish he didn't. The waiter took their menus away, and Dr. McAfee was relieved that she would hear no more about the misplaced cream sauce.

"How is your college progressing?" Frank asked her. "I'm curious. Is there potential in your students? Will they make trustworthy mental health providers?"

The question gave Dr. McAfee pause. "Yes…and no." She thought of Chuck and Olaf, squabbling like sitcom archrivals. She thought of Isabelle, an intelligent girl, of whom she was very fond, but whose mental stability was precarious at best. As for all the others, well…as much as Frank despised clichés, only a cliché could sum it up properly. Only time could tell. All she knew for sure was that she needed them to do well. She needed their help.

"You're trying to do too much, Cherry," Frank suddenly argued gently, with that instinctive sensitivity that had been one of the reasons she'd fallen in love with him in the first place. He reached out and took her hand, stroking her knuckles caringly with the same unforgiving fingers that butchered bad essays. "Wrong subject-verb agreement…that's a two-second job, and easy. The burden you've taken on is insurmountable. You can't fix every problem on the web. You can't help every person having issues."

"Who else is going to help them, if not me?" Dr. McAfee argued back.

"They should learn to help themselves. People need to be responsible for their own lives and losses."

"Is that a thesis from one of your 'uninspired' college essays?" Dr. McAfee teased lightly. Their food arrived, and Frank picked through his dish with his fork to be certain it met his standards. Evidently, it did, because he began to eat, as did his wife. They changed the conversation then, switching to lighter topics such as the latest publications from eBooks they'd both read, the latest hit shows on Netflix, which neither had time to watch, and, finally, the upcoming Who Framed Roger Rabbit thirtieth anniversary, the hottest subject on the web presently.

Frank dabbed at his mouth with his napkin. "I'm surprised they're still going through with the celebration, considering—"

"Let's not talk about that," Dr. McAfee insisted, cutting him off then and there. "Not here."

"Roger was briefly your patient afterwards, was he not?"

"Frank, shhhhhhhhh. Please." The waiter returned yet again to clear their plates and ask them if they wanted dessert.

"Two mousses, one white chocolate and one dark, please, and coffee, dark roast," Frank ordered, without consulting his estranged wife, because he already knew what she wanted (and he was right, the mousses at this particular restaurant were delicious, and they had them every time). They dug in with their spoons as soon as they arrived.

"We were good friends, weren't we?" Dr. McAfee remarked, after those first two satisfying bites. The taste of chocolate instantly put her in a better mood, and her glow returned. "And we botched it by getting married, didn't we?"

"And by trying to write a book together," Frank put in. "We were not very good collaborators." He raised his coffee cup for a toast. "Here's to the success of _Rewriting the Program,_ regardless. Here's to making people aware."

"To making people aware," Dr. McAfee echoed, clinking her cup against Frank's. For a brief moment, she was almost sad that they were getting divorced soon, after their agreed-upon year of living apart was over. "And to the internet, as well. For making it all possible."

"I will drink to that." Frank brought the cup to his lips, sipped, and then licked his lips critically. "Does this coffee taste burnt to you too?"

* * *

"Ralph, I am _not_ losing this gig to YouTube!" Yesss snapped furiously at the famous bad guy. They were on the phone, for which Ralph was glad, because when Yesss was in this state, it wasn't safe to be near her without a helmet on. "This is Who Framed Roger Rabbit! Can you think of any animated crossover comedy film as genius and ground-breaking as Who Framed Roger Rabbit?!"

Ralph tiredly rubbed at his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. "I know, I know, but TJ doesn't want to! My hands are tied here!"

"Then untie them! All the biggest names in cartoons are going to be there!"

"What if I just came and sang on my own?" Ralph offered. "Throw in a dance troupe of super adorable, super eager kids, and there you go, that's a package deal right there!"

"It's a rip-off without TJ! He's the tea to your cake, the eggs to your steak, and BuzzzTube doesn't serve up one-star dishes! We NEED him!" Yesss spat. "What does the kid want?! A car, a new phone, a Nintendo Switch?! A girlfriend?! A boyfriend?! I can make it happen!"

"He can buy all those things with his own money," Ralph reminded her. "And he doesn't want a girlfriend or boyfriend. Trust me, he could have gotten one by now if he did. The kid's got charm. We've all been working him too hard, that's all. What he wants is a rest."

"And by all means, he can have one... _after_ the Roger Rabbit party!"

Ralph swiped his hand down his face. "Yesss, for Pete's sake—"

"Need I remind you who it was who helped you get that steering wheel, when you had no where else to turn?!" the head of BuzzzTube demanded. "Who saw the potential in you and got you started?! _Who?!"_

"I'm pretty sure that was Shank," Ralph pointed out. And Pyro. And a leaf blower to the face that had completely altered the course of his life.

"Ralph…sweetheart…I am begging you…I am pleading with you…as your friend and as your agent… _ **CONVINCE HIM!**_ " Ralph held the phone away and winced at the battle-ram to his ear drum. "By any means necessary, or I'm gonna come to your arcade myself to get a 'yes' out of him, and trust me, that is the last thing either of you want!"

Yesss hung up. Ralph sighed. He was being tugged in both directions, like a doll with two small children laying claim to it, the seams splitting. Yesss wanted this. TJ wanted that. What in the world was he going to do?

Vanellope had been talking to the Disney princesses on the phone. They were going all out for the Roger Rabbit party, completely remodeling and redecorating their ballroom and other parts of the castle to look like a real 1940's swing hall. Steve Rogers a.k.a. "Captain America." who'd actually lived during the forties, was on the party committee as a consultant, helping to make sure everything was authentic. Everyone was getting new vintage outfits made. Everyone was practicing their swing dancing. It was going to be a blast to the past.

"It actually does sound like it's gonna be awesome," Vanellope said. "Why doesn't TJ wanna go? You'd think he'd be all over this."

"I _did_ think he would be all over this…but…you know, we just gotta respect his wishes." Ralph shrugged nonchalantly, though Vanellope could see the distress in his eyes, his crinkled brow. "Teens get embarrassed easily, so maybe he's just worried about messing up on camera or something…"

Vanellope was glad that she was going to be a kid forever if becoming a teenager meant getting the fun zapped out of you. She was really starting to "get into the swing of things," pun fully intended. She and her dance partner Candlehead were doing extra practice on the sly, and without Taffyta around nitpicking and being her dumb, mean, bossy self, the former president was finally starting to see the appeal in jitterbugging. Yet she still struggled to see the appeal in a certain famous part-Cybug, who spoiling all the fun with this sudden shyness of his.

 _It's just one party. He's sung at lots of parties. Why's this one so scary?_ Vanellope couldn't help but wonder if it had something to do with her. _Maybe he doesn't want to share the camera with me. Maybe he's saying no to spite me. He wasn't turning down gigs when I wasn't here!_

The other racers were moaning and groaning about it too. It was all they were talking about, day and night, on the racetrack and off of it as well. But no one was more disappointed by TJ's refusal than Ralph. The truth of the matter was…Ralph really wanted to sing at Who Framed Roger Rabbit's thirtieth anniversary. He really, _really_ wanted to. He'd been cheated out of his own thirtieth anniversary party, and it felt like the universe was divinely apologizing for it. He was being given a second chance to enjoy what was rightfully his.

But his friendship with TJ mattered way more than any anniversary party, no matter how epic of an anniversary party it was going to be. TJ didn't want to go, so they weren't going to go, and that was that. It was stamped down, in black and white, inerasable, finished, and _final…_

Still…it wouldn't hurt to ask one more time, would it?

"It's just one more gig!" Ralph promised TJ. The two of them were in the Hero's Duty kitchen. TJ was kneading bread dough for sandwiches. "What's one more gig, in the grand scheme of things?!"

"Did Yesss threaten you?" TJ asked. He threw a clean dishtowel over the dough so it could rise and clapped his hands together to shake off the excess flour. "She doesn't scare me."

"Well, she scares me," Ralph admitted. The timer dinged, and TJ slipped on oven mitts to pull a tray of freshly baked cheese buns out of the oven. The aroma was heavenly, and Ralph's stomach growled. TJ's cheese buns were almost as good are Mary's apple pies. And he never burned them, either.

"Why can't you sing there on your own?" TJ asked as he set the tray down to cool. "You can, you know. I won't get mad."

"They want the full 'Ralph and TJ' experience, kid," Ralph said, eagerly reaching out for a bun. TJ reached out and gave his friend's finger a forbidding smack.

"Those are for later," the hybrid said sternly.

"Sor-ry, _Mom,"_ Ralph joked, and TJ blushed crimson. "Kid? You okay?"

"It's too hot in here." Fanning himself, the hybrid fled the kitchen, with a now deeply concerned Ralph close on his heels.

"Are you sure you're okay?! Do you want me to get one of the nurses—?!"

" _ **NO!"**_ Ralph was taken aback by this sudden angry, startling outburst. "I mean…no, I don't need to see a nurse. They're busy enough with all the bullroar the Cybugs do to the troops during gameplay. I just…need a cool shower. That's all." And that's where TJ speedily headed off to, the shower rooms, leaving his show partner alone with his confusion.

"I'm tellin,' ya, Felix, something's up with that kid, and he's not spillin' the beans," Ralph reported worriedly to his co-worker later that day.

"TJ's at a complicated age, Ralph. Don't you remember what it was like?" Felix asked.

Ralph sighed and lay back his head against his beloved tree trunk. "He's more stressed out that a player on the final level, and it's all my fault! He hasn't been alive one year and he's already done more than most people do in their lifetimes." The wrecker scratched his chest thoughtfully. "If I could, I'd take him away on vacation somewhere. Just him and me."

"What about Vanellope?" Felix reminded him.

"Vanellope? Nah. She's going back to Slaughter Race as soon as she gets bored again. I know her," Ralph said. "This Sweet Swinger stuff is just her trying to one-up the other racers. I mean, she's getting really good at it, and I'm proud of her, but let's face it, the kid's made for the open road, not the dance hall. It's not gonna last."

"But you like having her back home, don't you?" Felix asked.

"Of course I do…" And he really did. "I'm just…trying not to get too attached again."

He was finally learning to live without her. He had a real life now, one that he was enjoying. _Really_ enjoying, actually. That first block of months without her hadn't been a real life. It had been, well…it had been a day to day coast-along. It was getting by. It was…it was…

It was dragging himself to Bad Anon for Clyde's and his fellow bad guys' words of support, which he'd so badly needed.

It was pretending to understand what everyone was talking about in Zangief's book club, even though he spent two-thirds of the time completely lost.

It was babysitting the racers so that Felix and Sergeant Calhoun could have a peaceful dinner out, tearing them apart when they went at each other.

It was sitting on his bench in Game Central Station, just trying to look casual, just trying to look like he was just chilling and people-watching, when he was really just feeling lonely, hoping that an acquaintance passing by would sit down next to him for a chat.

And it was waiting, always waiting, for his phone to ring, for Vanellope to remember him. He wouldn't call her, because that made him clingy and needy. She needed to call him first, with her news, her updates. So, he waited, and waited, and waited…

It was the kind of existence that made a guy feel small and invisible. You had friends, but you were no one's _best_ friend. You were the guy that got called in for a favor, or the guy who got invited out for a root beer out of politeness or because there was no one else free. And somehow, that was even lonelier than having no friends at all.

It was because you knew what you were missing. There was a crater carved into your heart, wailing to be filled. _Please, please, PLEASE, for the love of Mod, I just want someone special! A friend just for ME! Is that so much for a guy to ask?!_

In Game Central Station, TJ stepped out alone, an act that by itself would have been unthinkable not long ago. But his fame and his sparkling reputation were his protection now, and as he walked through, people stopped him to say hello, ask him how he was, comment on how tall and handsome he was getting, inquire what he and Ralph were working on now, and teasingly try to peek into the hamper he was carrying.

The station was filled with the smooth sound of jazz, provided by Lisa Simpson on her sax while her brother Bart danced ragtime in his Tappers' nightclub getup. Their baby sister Maggie held out Bart's cap to passerby, who dropped in coins or bills or whatever their game's currency was. TJ went over to drop in a ten-dollar bill he had in his pocket.

"Thanks, man!" Bart called out to TJ as he danced, giving a little salute. Maggie dropped the cash-stuffed cap and crawled towards the Cybug hybrid. Lifting herself up, she made grabby hands at him. _Pick me up!_

TJ set the hamper down to scoop up Maggie. "Hey, Mags," he cooed, cuddling her in his arms. "Can you say TJ?"

Maggie pulled her signature red pacifier out of her mouth. "Tee-Ja," she tried.

TJ's heart melted inside of him. "Close enough," he said as he tickled her under her chin, earning a pretty giggle. This felt right, holding a baby. He felt like a Dad. He bounced her gently in his arms as he improvised a silly song to the tune of her big sister's sax.

" _Ohhhhhh, you're my rock-a-bye baby, you can talk-a-bye lately, you can tell me what's trou-ble-ling yoooooooooou. You're my rag-a-tag doll, you're my once and for all, you're my snugga bugga rugga, hulla—bal-loooooooooooo…"_

He didn't realize that Ralph was nearby, watching, hearing, from right outside his own game's entrance. There was something about seeing TJ hold and sing to a baby that made the wrecker feel like he'd been walloped in the chest. _Why did you grow up so fast? You were tiny just yesterday. I sang 'Lullaby in Ragtime' to you and I haven't stopped singing since…_

"Hi," Ralph awkwardly greeted his young friend as he approached him.

"Hi," TJ said back, balancing Maggie on his hip.

"I'm sorry if I pushed—" Ralph began.

"I'm sorry I snapped—" TJ also started at the exact same time. They both paused, and TJ gestured with a free hand to the hamper he'd left on the floor. "I…brought some food…I brought some of the buns…I thought maybe we could have a picnic…or something…"

The teen looked so guilty. Why did he look guilty? He'd never done a thing wrong in his life. He was perfect. He was an angel. At least, to Ralph, he was. How else could his very presence make the previously hollow-hearted bad guy feel so complete?

"Let's go, big man!" Bart cried out to Ralph before the wrecker could respond to TJ's offer, dancing towards him while making "Come hither" gestures with his hands. "Dance battle! You and me, right here!"

"You're being challenged, Ralph," TJ said. "Are you gonna let him get away with it?"

"Like fun I am!" Ralph cried, his mood instantly skyrocketing. He pointed a ginormous finger at Bart. "You're on!"

A small, delighted, cheering crowd formed around Ralph and The Simpsons boy as they danced to Lisa's sax, with bets being passed around on who would miss a step first. "Maggie, who's winning?" TJ asked.

Maggie, being an infant and unbound by family loyalty, pointed at Ralph. TJ laughed.

"Maggie, will I be a good Dad?" the hybrid then asked. With no hesitation whatsoever, Maggie nodded, and hugged TJ warmly, throwing her little arms around his neck.

"Thanks, Mags," TJ said, rubbing her back appreciatively. "Thank you."

* * *

 **End of Chapter**

* * *

HOO BOY was that a doozy to write. Please, please, please leave reviews. They give me life.


	10. Chapter 10

This long, long chapter is Elton John-powered. Sorry for the long wait. I started this chapter once, then hated it, then started it again, then hated it more, then vomited it all up at once.

* * *

 **Rewriting the Program:** **Chapter Ten  
Your Song, Our Dance, My Secret**

* * *

"I don't see why not," Ralph said. "What do you think, kid?"

"Sure," TJ said, shrugging. "It would give _me_ a break."

Felix clapped his hands together excitedly. "Marvelous!" The handyman had wanted to be part of the show for some time now. He'd been brushing up on his piano-playing skills, to the rather teeth-clenched support of the Nicelanders, who had to endure his many, many hours of late-night practicing.

"You know anything by Elton John?" Ralph asked him.

" _Do I?!"_ Felix entwined his fingers and stretched out his arms. The unsettlingly loud _crack_ that ensued was a dead giveaway that he was someone who spent most of the day tensely gripping a hammer. Felix's eye twitched. "Ow…"

Ralph and TJ both cringed.

"No, no, it's fine! I'm fine!" Felix exclaimed, frantically shaking out his hands and arms. "It's all good! Ahem…alllllllrighty, then! Elton John, coming right up!" He quickly flipped to a page in his thick book of sheet music _, Crowd-Pleasers for the Aspiring Piano Man,_ and found the song Ralph and TJ wanted. Outside his apartment door, several Nicelanders were loitering about and listening in. Felix then, a bit shakily at first, began to play.

" _It's a little bit funny,"_ TJ began to sing sweetly and heartfully, in his strong, young voice. _"This feelin' insiiiiiiide. I'm not one of those who can…easily hide…"_

Ralph took over. _"I don't have much money, but boy, if I diiiiiiid…I'd buy a big house wheeeeeeeeere, we both could liiiiiiive…"_

TJ had to smile and chuckle a little at that. He and Ralph could afford a _castle_ if they wanted one, and live out the rest of their days in high style. But Ralph couldn't leave Fix-It Felix Jr. and TJ didn't want to live in a castle. He had a different sort of dream home in mind. Something better suited for a family.

" _If I were a sculptor…but then again, no,"_ TJ sang, watching Felix's fingers dance across the keys. His hand swept up to turn the pages for him. _"Or a man who makes potions in a…travelling shooooooow. I know it's not much, but it's the best I can do…"_

" _My gift is my song, aaaaaaaaand…this one's for you."_ Ralph's face was that of someone ready to burst with love. But TJ wasn't meeting his eyes. He kept his own downcast, like someone with an unspoken thought.

" _And you can tell everybody, this is your sooooooong,"_ they sang together in perfect harmony, their voices syncing up even though their minds were not. _"It may be quite simple buuuuuuuuut, now that's dooooooooone…"_

" _I hope you don't mind…"_ TJ sang, clutching a corner of the piano. He still wasn't looking up.

" _I hope you don't mind…"_ Ralph sang, now a little anxiously. _"That I put down in words…"_

Ralph and TJ finished together. _"How won-der-ful life is…now you're in the world."_ Felix finished playing, and the Nicelanders at the door clapped appreciatively.

Nicelander Don wiped away some tears with the sleeve of his sailor's jacket. "Aw, man. That one always gets me…"

"That's not bad," TJ told Felix. "But you missed a couple of notes."

Felix blinked. "I did?" TJ flipped the sheet music back to point and show him. "Ohhhh, _shoot!_ I did! Looks like I'm still a little rusty…"

"It's fine, Felix. Really. No one's gonna hurl tomatoes at ya. Tapper doesn't let people bring in outside food," Ralph said, winking at TJ. "Not like that's ever stopped us."

TJ offered up a rather strained smile in response. Ralph's face fell. His heart began to race with panic. _Why aren't you happy, kid?_ TJ looked at his watch. _Was it something I did? Was it something I said?_ TJ rubbed at his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. _Are you getting tired of me?_

"I have to head out," TJ suddenly announced. "I'm doing one last rehearsal with the Sweet Swingers for their big performance tonight."

 _Forget about the Sweet Swingers,_ Ralph wanted to beg. _Let 'em rehearse on their own. Stay here and let's sing our way through Elton John's whole album together._ But TJ had a commitment, and Ralph couldn't stop him.

"Tammy and I really appreciate how much you're helping them. It's fantastic. Really," Felix told TJ. TJ muttered a thanks, and headed to Felix's bathroom to change into his dance practice clothes. While he was in there, Felix turned to Ralph.

"Have you noticed? The kids are so much more _calm_ lately. Thank goodness. The dancing's getting out all that pent-up energy!" Ralph begged to differ. To him, they were still a pack of little terrors, just ones that could hold their own on the dance floor a little better now. It was TJ's changing behavior he was dwelling on. The teen hybrid was becoming more withdrawn, more distant _,_ saying little, eating less, taking longer bathroom breaks, ending their phone conversations sooner, and generally living in his own little bubble. All Ralph wanted to do was get on his knees and plead with him, _talk to me, talk to me, I'm right here,_ but he couldn't. He was well aware that a desperate play like that would only make things worse. TJ would just draw back even more. He had to give him space. He _had_ to. Even if the mysteriousness of it all was killing him. Why did teenagers have to be like this?

Stephanie's father was asking himself the exact same question that evening. "What's wrong, honey?" he asked worriedly at the dinner table. Stephanie poked at her cooling food with her fork, not raising her head to meet his gaze. "Are you and Robbie fighting?" he tried again.

"That boy is trouble," Stephanie's stepmother remarked quietly as she sprinkled salt on her boiled potatoes. "Foster care kids usually are. And with a parent in jail—"

The whole family jumped as Stephanie slammed her palm on the table. "You don't know _anything_ about him!" she snapped.

"Stephanie, calm down, please," her father pleaded. "I know you had a stressful day at work, but that's no reason to take it out on us!"

"But she said—!"

"I heard what she said. That was uncalled for, too." He shot a disapproving look at his wife. "Robbie's a perfectly nice young man. Where he comes from means nothing."

Stephanie angrily pushed her plate away. "I'm not hungry," she said.

Her father frowned. "You've barely eaten anything—"

" _I'm not hungry."_ She was gone from the table before anyone could insist she stay. She snatched her jacket off the coat rack in the hallway and slammed the door behind her as she ran out into the night. Back at the table, her half-brother reached over to steal her dessert, while his parents were busy sighing to themselves and shaking their heads.

Back in Fix-It Felix Jr., TJ stepped out of the bathroom. The teen-hybrid was in his usual rehearsal ensemble of black leggings and an oversized army t-shirt, cut in the back to free his wings, but now there was a new addition: the most shamelessly pink and cutesy knitted legwarmers that had ever graced Litwak's Arcade. Even Taffyta didn't have such a pair.

"Those are…new," Ralph remarked. Felix's face was twisted in an expression that screamed _Yikes._

"Uncle Markowski made me these. You know how he knits a lot for stress relief," TJ explained casually, as he dug through his canvas bag to make sure he had all of his belongings. "He was gonna make green ones, but he ran out of yarn in that colour." He shrugged. "I like them. They keep the circulation going in my legs."

"They're uhhhhhh…great, kid. Very, uh, detailed." Markowski seemed to have gone all out with the design. An elaborate ribbed and flowery pattern snaked up and down TJ's calves and around his ankles. "Will you call me later?"

"Of course." Again, that forced smile, as if he couldn't wait to leave. "Catch you both later at Tappers." In the hallway, some of the Nicelanders were still standing about chattering, but everyone stopped and stared as TJ swept by them in his new homemade accessories and disappeared into the elevator. Nicelander Deanna lifted her glasses and blinked rapidly, to make sure she saw correctly.

"Now that's a look," Nicelander Lucy commented approvingly, beaming.

"Why's he wearing _those_ legwarmers?" Gene scoffed, when Ralph stepped out into the hallway as well.

"I don't know, Gene. Why are you wearing _those_ gaudy cuff links? Your daughter getting married today?" Ralph fired back. Nicelander Lucy snorted behind her hand. Gene threw a glare her way and marched off down the hall, back to his own apartment. Behind his back, she and Ralph exchanged a thumbs up.

Ralph headed then for the fire escape, and from there the roof, hoping to catch TJ making his way to the train. He was in luck. The kid was strolling to the train stop, not flying. Ralph sighed, mournfully.

" _I sat on the roof…and I kicked off the moss…"_ the wrecker sang, taking a seat on the rooftop's edge as he watched TJ's retreating figure. _"Well, a few of the verses, well they…they've got me quite cross…"_

Down below, TJ suddenly stopped and turned around. He saw Ralph perched on the Niceland building's roof. He smiled up at him hated keeping secrets from him. He hated having to hide. _Just a few more weeks and then I'll tell him everything._ He would tell Ralph all of his big plans for the future. Their future.

" _But the sun's been quite kind, while I wrote this song…"_ the hybrid sang softly as he raised a hand to wave goodbye. _"It's for people like you, Ralph, that keep it turned on…"_

Ralph made himself smile, as if everything was okay, as he raised a hand to wave back. _"So excuse me forgetting, but these things I do."_ He let his hand slowly dropped to his side. _"You've see, I've forgotten if they're…they're green or they're blue…"_

" _Anyway, the thing is…"_ TJ sang as he hopped into the train that would take him out of Fix-It Felix Jr. He pressed a hand against his stomach as he sat down. Meanwhile, not far from the arcade, Stephanie, alone on the dimly lit suburban streets, teared up as she did the same. _"What I really mean…"_

" _Yours are the sweetest eyes, I've ever seen…"_ Ralph sang as he slowly closed his own. In his mind, he saw baby TJ cradled in his arm, looking up at him. _"And you can tell everybody…. this is your song…"_ He opened his eyes. _"It may be quite simple but…now that it's done…"_

TJ hugged himself as the train took off, rushing forward towards Game Central Station. _"I hope you don't mind. I hope you don't mind…that I put down in words…"_

Ralph gulped as he watched TJ disappear into the tunnel. Stephanie smiled as she spotted Robbie where she guessed he would be, in the Litwak's Arcade parking lot, hoping she would show up as all. She raced over to him, and he took her in his arms for a tight embrace.

The last line came out of the Ralph's lips as a whisper. _"How won-der-ful life is…now you're in the world…"_ Felix climbed up onto the roof as well and found Ralph there, staring out into the distance.

"You alright, brother?" he asked concernedly. The bad guy turned, and his eyes were glistening with tears.

"I love that kid so much, Felix. You have no idea," Ralph said. "I feel like I'm losing him." Felix gave a sympathetic sigh.

"Can I say something, Ralph?" he asked.

"Can I stop you?" Ralph retorted.

Felix smiled at that. "I think…I think you and TJ need to remember sometimes to be friends too, not just show partners," Felix said. "You need to try and remember how things were _before_ you both became famous. That might help."

Ralph nodded solemnly as he took in that thought. _How things were before we became famous. Well, we were both still nutbar about music. That never changed._ Then, suddenly, he thought of something. A stroke of genius that hit him like a brick to the head. His face lit up.

"Felix!" he began, wagging both pointer fingers at his game's good guy. "You know how to play Elton John songs! Buuuuuuuuut…what about songs that Elton John's _covered?"_

Felix titled his head to the side in confusion. "I'm…not following you."

"Well, follow me to Tappers and I'll explain!" Ralph cried, running past Felix and leaping onto the fire escape to slide down it. "I have an idea! TJ will _love it!_ Come on!"

* * *

"We look like two overexcited monkeys, going bananas at feedin' time!" Vanellope cried out. She and Candlehead were in the Sugar Rush ballroom, and had just blundered their way through the routine they were meant to perform that night with the Sweet Swingers at Tappers. Vanellope had taped the whole thing on her BuzzzPhone, and she was appalled by what the little square screen was playing back for her. Why, why, _why_ hadn't the makers of Sugar Rush programmed dancing in her? She was a princess! It should have been one of her _best_ skills!

"I don't think we look that bad," Candlehead said, peaking over Vanellope's shoulder at the phone. "We didn't miss any steps."

"I'm deleting this incriminating footage," Vanellope muttered under her breath, jabbing the garbage can icon on the screen. There. Gone.

"Well, at least we're having fun! It's too bad we've never hung out like this before!" Candlehead jabbered on. "It sucks that you got sugar pox and missed my sleepover that one time!"

"Uh huh. Sugar pox. Right." Sugar pox didn't exist. Vanellope had made that up because she hadn't wanted to go to an overnight party where she would have had to put up with Taffyta, Rancis, Jubileena, and Crumbelina all at once (out of all the racers, that lot ranked highest on the roster of being mean to her during the King Candy years). That night, instead, she'd snuck out of the castle to meet Ralph. Together, they had stolen some lunch trays from BurgerTime and used them to go sledding. Man, that had been such a fun night. Just like all the other nights. "Can we just do the routine again? We need to get it _right!"_

"Hold on, I gotta pee. Be right back!" Candlehead said, darting out of the ballroom, clutching her skirt. Vanellope groaned, exaggeratedly throwing her hands over her head. At this rate, she was never going to be Ralph's best backup dancer! Right now she was only middle shelf, at best!

Out of boredom, she tried to call him. He didn't pick up. She got his voicemail instead. _"Heyooooooo, this is Ralph, first name Wreck-It! Leave a message and I'll get back to ya! Okay, now what button do I press—?"_ Vanellope sighed. She had gotten used to him not picking up on the first ring, or not at all. He was so busy now. When he was not rehearsing at Tappers with TJ and the band, he was out having a grand old time somewhere else, with TJ and all the suck-ups that liked to cluster around them. Her Stinkbrain had become quite the party boy, it seemed.

Behind her, the ballroom door creaked open. Vanellope spun around. "Took ya long enough—!" She froze. It was TJ standing there, not Candlehead.

"You're early," he said.

"S-So are you," she glitched. He dropped his bag to the floor, and regarded the nearly empty ballroom.

"Candyhead…I-I mean, Candlehead and I are practicing," Vanellope explained. She suddenly realized that this was the first time she and TJ had been alone together since she'd given him a "tour" of her home in Slaughter Race. Then, they'd flung cheap insults at each other. Now the soup of the day was one big heaping portion of awkward tension.

"That's…great," TJ said. "I'm glad you two are working out as partners." He coughed and checked his watch. "The, uh, others won't be here for a while. You and Candlehead keep doing… whatever you're doing. I'm going to stretch over there."

"Okay," she mumbled, staring down at her feet and trying her hardest not to say anything about the cheesy pink legwarmers. When did he raid Taffyta's closet? "Whatever starts your kart."

"Also, please don't ask about the Roger Rabbit party," TJ told Vanellope as he drifted past her, heading for the candy cane ballet bars Taffyta recently had drilled into the walls. There was a special one just for him, one that suited his height. All the others were much lower. "It's not happening. My uncles lay down the law with Yesss and BuzzzTube over the phone…the law being that I'm a minor and no one can make me do anything without their explicit and signed permission. So that's that."

Vanellope frowned, acute disappointment sweeping through her like a wave of glitching. _Gotta ran on the parade if you ain't the main float, huh, Turbo Junior?_ In his corner, oblivious to her scorn, TJ took out his BuzzzPhone, plugged in a set of earbuds, slipped the little white knobs into his ears, and clipped the phone to his waist. Then, he began to do some simple dancer stretches.

Vanellope stared. TJ closed his eyes and gracefully arched backwards, one arm over his head, the other gripping the ballet bar for balance as he extended his leg forwards. The light pouring in from the high windows caught on his wings. They spread out as he lifted himself back up again, sheets of glittering green like stained glass. Vanellope, eyes watering up, looked away. Why did he have to look and move like _that?_ TJ had no business being that pretty. Turbo was as ugly as a dog's butt, and Cy-Bugs were supposed to be monsters. How did their combined codes produce something that looked like it had stepped straight out of a fairytale?

Vanellope went over to one of the racer-sized ballet bars, a good distance away from him but close enough so that she could watch and Monkey See, Monkey Do. TJ's eyes were still closed, and he was humming along to whatever his BuzzzPhone was spilling into his ears, so he didn't notice that he'd adopted a shadow. When his arm went up, so did hers. When he put a leg up on the bar to stretch out his hamstring, she did the same. When he pressed the back of his heels together and squatted down slowly, she squatted as well, on wobbly knees. When he bent forwards, to touch his toes, down she went too.

 _Alright, so far, so good. Whatever he can do, I can do._ TJ suddenly stopped and turned to look at her. Yanking out one earbud, he asked, "Are you copying me?"

"No!" At once Vanellope started doing random circular motions with her arms. "Look! See?! This is different!"

TJ merely shrugged and stuck his earbud back in. Then, after stepping far away from the bar, he began to pirouette, perfectly, a pink and green spinning top. Vanellope's jaw dropped. _Aw, come on! That's not fair!_ Furiously, she began to pirouette too, determined to win one over on him. She pushed her tiny body as hard as she could. _Come on! Come on! Faster, faster, faster!_

"Ahhhh!" She glitched and fell to the ground, landing hard on her stomach. "No, no, _no!_ Dang it! DANG IT! _"_

Within seconds TJ's hands were on her, lifting her up to her feet. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine! Don't touch me!" Vanellope snapped, glitching away from him and brushing floor dust off herself. "How do you dance like _that?!"_ she demanded.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Like you don't care if anyone's watching," she said. _Like you don't care that your legwarmers are ugly as sin. Like you don't care that Turbo's your birth parent. Like you don't even notice that the whole arcade is bonkers in love with you._

"You're overthinking it. That's the problem," TJ told her, plainly and simply. "It's not racing. There's no special maneuver or hack. It's just…you, and the song." He yanked his earbuds cord from his phone and began quickly scrolling through his iTunes library. "Hold on a second…Ah, here we go. Perfect."

He pressed play and set his phone down on the floor. From it seeped Elton John's tender voice, accompanied by piano music. _"Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the baaaaaaaaand…"_

TJ held his hand out to Vanellope. "Come on."

Vanellope blinked. "Huh?"

"Come on," he repeated, still holding out his hand.

"You mean—?" She hesitated, looking up his face—Turbo's face, not Turbo's face—for any hint that this was a trick. She couldn't find one. He was being sincere. He wanted to help. _Well, I guess doing this once won't kill me. Who knows? Maybe some of his talent will rub off on me._

" _Pretty eyyyyyyyes, pirate smile…you'll marry a music mannnnnnn…"_

 _Here goes nothing._ Vanellope gulped, and took TJ's hand. TJ pulled her to him.

" _Ballerinaaaaaaa, you must have seen heeeeeeeeer, dan-cing in the sand…"_

"Don't think," TJ instructed gently as they began to move together across the floor, smoothly, instinctively. At that moment, Vanellope's brain could only produce one thought and one thought alone. _I'm dancing with TJ. I'm dancing with TJ and I like it._ He tossed her up in the air. She twirled, he caught her, and off they went again.

" _Now she's with me, always with me…tiny dancer in my haaaaaaaaaaand…!"_ Taffyta, Rancis, and the other racers arrived at the ballroom to find Candlehead peaking intently through the ajar door.

"Candlehead," Taffyta began, "What are you—?"

"Shhhhhhh!"

"Don't you shhhhhhhhh me!" Taffyta snapped. "I'm your elected leader!"

"SHHHHHHHHHHH! Come look!" She frantically waved them over, and they all sneakily gathered around to see. Taffyta's mouth dropped open, and the rest of the racers couldn't believe their eyes. It was TJ and Vanellope, dancing together! Gliding and whirling beautifully around the ballroom in improvised, trance-like movements. And Vanellope wasn't glitching. Not even a little bit.

" _Ohhhhhhh, how it feels so real, lying here, with no one near! Only you…and you can hear me…when I say soooooooooftly, sloooooooooowly….!"_

Vanellope gasped as, suddenly, TJ seized her by the waist and lifted them both up in the air, and they were flying and spinning around the ballroom.

" _Hold me closer, tiny dancer! Count the headlights on the highwaaaaaay! Lay me down in sheets of linen, you had a busy day todaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!"_ Vanellope was laughing, because she felt lighter than air, and dizzy, gloriously dizzy. And TJ was laughing because Vanellope was laughing, and it felt so good to laugh off some of the secrecy and stress.

" _Hold me closer, tiny dancer! Count the headlights on the highwaaaaaay!"_ With TJ's arm around her waist, supporting her, Vanellope dramatically threw back her head and arms _._ Her ponytail whipped around like a black ribbon in the wind as she and TJ spun and spun and spun. _"Lay me down in sheets of linen, you had a busy day todaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!"_

They floated back down to the floor, and TJ twirled her one last time before they ended in him dipping her. They stayed locked in that position for what felt like an eternity, staring into each other's eyes, searching for…neither knew what. Answers to all the questions neither of them dared to ask about each other's lives, perhaps. Vanellope's heart was pounding. She could feel herself falling under the same spell everyone else was, and she was doing little to stop it.

 _He really is perfect, isn't he?_ Before she could stop herself, she reached up to brush his cheek, so very lightly, with the tips of her fingers, and was surprised to find how soft it was. _Do he and Ralph use the same fancy moisturizer?_ Little did she know, far away on the internet, another set of fingers were stroking TJ's face as well, with equal parts tenderness and possessiveness, as someone would caress a prize they deeply coveted.

"Junior. My boy…"

Turbo's side of his cell was completely plastered from top to bottom with pictures of his son. Posters, magazine articles, collectible postcards…all either gifted to him out of pity by the prison guards or offered to him mockingly by the other inmates, who made a game of tormenting the former racer over his famous yet perpetually absent offspring. Wreck-It Ralph's repulsive face had been meticulously snipped out of everything, or ripped off in a fit of fury, as in the case of the giant "Who Doesn't Love a Bad Guy" poster that took up most of the space. It looked like the wall of an obsessive stalker fan, not a proud parent's shrine to their overachieving child.

On the bottom bunk bed, Turbo's cell mate Dave was sitting cross-legged—or, as cross-legged as he could be, considering he was a Lego man—on the bed, trying to meditate. His pincher fingers clicked together as he chanted.

"Ommmmmmm…ommmmmm…I'm in my happy place…I'm in my happy place…"

Turbo's fists shook at his sides, and he spun around. "Pipe down with the Buddha bullroar, will ya?!" he growled.

Dave rolled his eyes and let his "hands" rest on his blocky knees. "Sorry, am I interrupting _quality family time?"_

"Shut up!"

Dave sighed. "Listen, Turbo, my dude, you know I'm sympathetic. I've got kids too." On the wall behind him, there was a lovely photo in a homemade frame of Dave on a beach somewhere with two smaller, nearly identical Lego kids. They were staying with friends while he served out his sentence. "But this…this is a whole new level of creepy. You're gonna drive yourself crazy. Crazier."

"He's _my_ son! He's _mine!"_ Turbo shouted at him, his sinister yellow eyes blazing with hatred. Raw rage. "And that vile, garbage-dwelling, foul-breathed _ape_ is usinghim! There is no way, _no way,_ that sorry excuse for a bad guy could ever have written those songs on his own! My boy—" Turbo spun back around to face young TJ, so happy and triumphant in his stage costume. "—my Junior, it was all him! I know it was all him!"

Dave nodded. "He's multi-talented. Everybody loves him. You should be proud."

"Proud?!" Turbo snapped. "You think I'm _proud?!_ I've never been _less_ proud! _"_ He began to pace the cell, which barely provided enough square feet for him to rant and rave. "This is wrong, this is all wrong…Junior was supposed to be a racer! Not a singer, not a dancer, and not…n-not freakin' Piano Man! A _**RACER!"**_ he yelled, pounding his fist on his open palm. "They've taken my child…they've taken my _legacy_ from me and made him their little circus monkey, a slave to their own entertainment!" Turbo stopped in his tracks. "When I get out of here, I'll set things right! I'll get my boy back!"

"What makes you think you're ever getting out of here?" Dave asked. "You think your rich kid's gonna pay your bail? He hasn't even visited you yet, or answered your letters."

"I have reason to suspect that my letters never reached him," Turbo spat. "And how can he come visit me, when they're holding him hostage?!" Turbo refused to believe that his Junior was ignoring him voluntarily. Not after the pain Turbo had gone through to bring him into this world. Oh, God, how it had _hurt!_ There was no pain like it, not that he could remember. And he'd spent ten years homeless, persecuted, and on the verge of starvation. He'd nearly perished in that disgusting rock candy mine…and for what? For the fruit of all his suffering to become that stinking, fat-headed, and fat-handed beast's meal ticket!

"Don't worry, Junior," Turbo whispered to the giant poster. "No prison ever built will keep me away from you." Running his grimy fingers across TJ's paper cheek, he added in a whisper. "I _will_ get out of here. Daddy's coming for you."

Back at Litwak's Arcade, Vanellope slowly pulled her hand away from TJ's face, and TJ pulled her back up to her feet. "See?" he said, letting go of her. "Easy."

Elton was still singing _. "Hold me closer, tiny dancer…"_ Vanellope blushed crimson, and said nothing. She felt too confused to speak. Then the other racer-dancers began to stream in. TJ snatched up his phone from the floor and turned off the music. He then put it on silent and slipped it into his bag.

"Oh, good. Everyone's here. Ahem." TJ clapped his hands together. "Alright, Sweet Swingers, take your places at the bars! We're gonna do some stretches before we start! And, uh, Candlehead. You've got toilet paper stuck to your shoe."

* * *

The Sweet Swingers performed their routine masterfully that evening, taking up the whole Tappers dance floor. The onlookers on the sidelines cheered them on, but none so much as their parents.

"Those are my little troopers!" Sergeant Calhoun shouted. "Makin' their Mama proud!"

"Taffy-cakes, look at me and smile!" Felix called out, holding up a video camera. Taffyta twirled, her flouncy pink skirt billowing around her, and blew her Dad a kiss. Vanellope, jigging it with Candlehead nearby, rolled her eyes.

"Way to go, kids!" Ralph cried out from the stage, tapping his feet and snapping his fingers to the music. "Come on, Vanellope, shake what the coders gave ya!"

" _ **WAHOOOOOOO!"**_ Yes! Validation! At last! Vanellope felt like she was on top of the world. She and Candlehead were killing it! At the piano, TJ watched as he played, pleased to see all his hard work hadn't fallen on numb feet. The Sweet Swingers finished with a flourish, ending in dips, though Vanellope very nearly dropped Candlehead, after she spun into her arms a bit too fast. Vanellope admitted to herself that she much preferred being the one who was dipped, not the dipper.

"Let's hear it for the Sweet Swingers! Give 'em some love, Litwak's!" Ralph exclaimed. The crowd cheered, and the racers happily curtseyed and bowed. "And let's hear it for TJ, the best dance instructor this side of Pac-Man!"

The crowd cheered louder, and TJ stood up from the piano to take a bow before plunking himself back down. The floor was now going to be opened to anyone who wanted to dance. At least, that was the original plan. But then, Bart Simpson appeared, carrying a second microphone stand up to the stage.

"Set it up right there, kid," Ralph told him. "Right next to me." He tapped the new microphone with his finger. "Ahem. Testing, one, two, three. Perfect. Alright. Ahem, ladies and gents, boys and gals, and everything in-between! The repertoire tonight is going to be a bit…different from usual."

Vanellope could tell from the look on TJ's face that he had no clue what was going on. The other band members did, though, shooting each other knowing smiles as they took up their instruments and hurriedly rearranged their sheet music. Even Felix was in on it. Grinning, he bounced up on the stage.

"Up you get, mister," the handyman-turned-pianist playfully insisted, waving TJ off the bench. "It's my turn!"

"What's going on?" TJ asked confusedly, as he climbed off, letting Felix slide comfortably into his place.

Ralph spoke to the crowd. "Before TJ and I became famous and got into swing, we used to rock out all the time to, well…rock. We made this playlist at iTunes together. Songs to get us psyched up for playing paintball…" In the crowd, Champ nodded his helmeted head and gave a thumbs-up. Ralph nodded back. "This one's number three."

"Ralph, we're supposed to be playing 'On the Sunny Side of the Street,'" TJ said as he stepped up to the second stand.

"Well, tonight we're crossing over to the dark side, Twiggy Jiggy!" Ralph snatched his mic with one hand, snapped his fingers with the other, and pointed behind him. "Hit it, Felix!"

Felix began to tap out a fast tune. Skrillex slammed his guitar. _"HELL YEAH!"_ someone shouted in the crowd, everyone else began to cry out wildly and bounce on their feet the second they recognized the song, which just so happened to be the arcade theme song. Tapper reached under his bar top to press a few buttons, and in an instant the swing nightclub became an eighties rock concert hall, blaring with neon-coloured lights.

"Come on, kid! Just like old times!" Ralph cried out to TJ. He turned to the thrilled crowd and began to sing. _"Ever since I was a young boy, I played the silver ball! From Soho down to Brighten, I must have played them all! But I ain't seen nothin' like him, in any amusement hall! That deaf, dumb, and blind kid—!"_

" _ **SURE PLAYS A MEAN PIN-BAAAAALL!"**_ The crowd sang back. The vibe in the club had completely changed, and everyone began jumping up and down like crazy. It was really a rock concert. An impromptu rock concert. TJ's eyes were wide and sparkling with genuine surprise, and delight. This was one of his favourite songs ever. He felt like a kid again, messing around in an iTunes booth with Ralph, or in the mess hall in Hero's Duty, rocking out to whatever came out of a beat-up old radio.

Ralph was watching TJ intently. _Please, please, please! Join in and have fun with me!_ The angels were smiling down on him. TJ threw Ralph an "Alright, you win," smirk, and he seized his own mic to take on the next part.

" _He stands like a statue, becomes part of the machine! Feelin' all the bumpers! Always playin' CLEAN! He plays by in-tuition! The digital counters fall! That deaf, dumb, and bliiiiiind kid—!"_ TJ whirled in the air on his wings and landed pointing at the crowd. "Let me hear it, Litwak's!"

" _ **SURE PLAYS A MEAN PIN-BAAAAAAAAAALL!"**_ Outside, in an old sedan in the Litwak's parking lot, Robbie suddenly stopped kissing Stephanie's neck.

"Did you hear that?" he asked her.

"Hear what?"

"That," he said. They both turned, and saw a light flashing from inside the dark and closed arcade. "It sounds like music."

"Aw, shoot! Ivan must have left one of the machines on while closing up!" Stephanie sighed and pulled out her phone. "I don't have the key. I gotta call Mr. Litwak and tell him."

On the Tapper stage, Ralph and TJ were hopping up and down like two sugar-hyped kids as they belted into their mics. _"He's a pinball wizard! There has to be a twist! A pinball wizard's got such a supple wriiiiiiiist!"_ They both raised a free hand to shake it.

" _How do you think he does it?!"_ Ralph and TJ sang together. They both held out their mics to the crowd.

" _I don't know!"_ the crowd sang back.

Ralph and TJ sang into their mics. _"What makes him so gooooooooood?!"_

"Alright, Dad!" Swizzle shouted as Felix fully embraced his inner rock star, leaping up from the piano bench and kicking it away with the back of his foot as he viciously attacked the keys. Sergeant Calhoun's face was beaming with a proud "Yup, I'm married to that" smile.

" _Ain't got no distractions, can't hear no buzzes and bells! Don't see lights a-flashin,' he plays by sense of smell!"_ Vanellope sang along. She had climbed up on a chair to see better. Suddenly, someone tugged gently on her shirt sleeve. She turned, and her eyes shot wide open.

" _SHANK?!_ " the girl-racer cried out in shock. "What are you doing here?!"

"I came to find YOU! Felony's covering for me!" Shank yelled over the music. "Now I get why you haven't come back to Slaughter Race yet! This is _sick!"_ The older female racer started headbanging, throwing her hand out to make devil's horns, and Vanellope enthusiastically joined in, relieved to know that Shank wasn't mad at her.

Ralph and TJ sang, _"That deaf, dumb, and blind kid—!"_

" _ **SURE PLAYS A MEAN PIN-BAAAAAAAAAALL!"**_ People in the audience began to hoot as Ralph and TJ both stripped off their jackets and twirled them over their heads. _"He can't beat me now, I've always been the champ! I know every trick, no freak's gonna beat my hand!"_ They tossed their jackets into the crowd, and hands went up to catch them.

"Yesss is really pissed!" Shank shouted at Vanellope as they jumped up and down with the rest of the audience.

"WHAT?!" Vanellope shouted back, holding a hand to her ear. The music was getting louder by the second.

"Yesss is _really_ pissed!"

"Yesss broke her wrist?!"

"She really wants TJ to do the Roger Rabbit party!"

"She really wants TJ to do the Hokey Pokey?!"

"Never mind!"

" _Who_ died?!"

"Now THIS is more like it!" Ralph thought exuberantly, seeing TJ having a ball and letting loose, tossing around his hair. Why hadn't they thought of doing this before? Time for the big finish!

" _He's a pinball wizard, he scores a trillion more! A pinball wizard, the world's new pin-ball looooooooord! He's scoring more!"_ Ralph and TJ ended strong. _"He's scoring moooooooooore! Ohhhhhhh, he's SCOOOOOOOR-INNNNNNNNG_ _ **MOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!"**_ The band wrapped up the song, and an exhausted and sweat-drenched Felix nearly collapsed against the piano after such an intense debut.

The crowd went _insane,_ chanting Ralph and TJ's names while pumping their fists and slapping their hands together. The duo was breathless and laughing, barely managing a high-five, missing each other once before achieving it. Ralph, after struggling to catch his breath, gasped into the microphone.

"Alright folks…we're gonna…take a break now…also, whoever caught my jacket, I kinda need it back. I forgot my phone's in there. Also, my breath mints." The jacket surfed back to him on the hands of the crowd, as did TJ's jacket, and the pair quickly vanished to recuperate in what counted as their "dressing room" in Tapper, though it was really just a converted storage space.

"Holy guacamole," Ralph breathed, collapsing on the floor so that TJ could have the sofa. "That was _nuts."_

"That was incredible," TJ breathed back, face planted in a cushion. "Thanks, Ralph. I needed that."

"We both did, kid. Buuuuuut…I can't get up."

"Me neither," TJ said. "I guess we live here now." Back in the club, fired up by the music, the clubbers were talking animatedly.

"It's originally by The Who!" Felix, fanning himself with a packet of sheet music, was loudly explaining to some confused younger characters who'd been debating the song's origin. "It's from a rock opera called 'Tommy!' Elton John covered it in nineteen seventy-five when—!"

"What's a rock opera?!" Candlehead asked Rancis.

"An opera about rocks?" Rancis answered, shrugging.

"Ahhhh, cool! I love rocks!"

"It's from their third album," Gene was saying to Tapper, Sour Bill, and a few other Nicelanders at the bar.

"Fourth album, dear," Nicelander Mary argued sweetly.

Gene wrinkled his nose. "Honeybunch, I _distinctly_ remember it was their third—"

"It's not," Mary said. "This is why I don't partner up with you for Trivia Pursuit."

"I'm with Mary. It was definitely their fourth album," Nicelander Lucy cut in.

Tapper called out. "Hey, Vanellope, bring your phone over here! We need you to fact-check something!"

In their dressing room, TJ spoke up softly. "Ralph, I hate to bug you, but can you get me some water, please? I'm feeling…kind of light-headed."

Ralph was on his feet in an instant. "Of course!" he exclaimed. "Anything you want, buddy! Uhhhhh, water, water…Oh, right, there's a sink." He quickly filled up a glass and brought it to TJ's side. "Drink up."

TJ drank deeply, polishing off the glass in one go. He passed the glass back to Ralph. "S-Sorry, I'm still thirsty, can you—?" Ralph had the glass refilled and back in TJ's hand before he could even finish the question. "Thanks." He began to chug again. Ralph's features were dark with concern. Had this stunt been too much for him?

"It was their fourth album!" Vanellope announced to the group, looking down at her phone screen. "Right after 'The Who Sell Out!' Looks like you ain't going on Jeopardy anytime soon, Gene!"

"HA! Eat it!" Nicelander Lucy cried, pointing a finger at the older Nicelander. Gene rolled his eyes and downed the rest of his drink. Mary leaned over to kiss his cheek.

"Well, you have other qualities, love." She picked up her purse. "Excuse me, I'm going to go powder my nose." She hopped down from the bar stool, and threw a look over her shoulder at Gene that clearly said, "Follow me."

In the dressing room, TJ wiped his mouth on his hand. "I forgot about our paintball playlist. When was the last time we went paint balling?"

"Been a while now," Ralph admitted. "We should go again soon."

TJ closed his eyes and gently shook his head. He couldn't. It was too risky. "We never took Vanellope. We promised we would."

"She'll live. Besides, she's found her niche too. She was pretty great out there, wasn't she?"

"Yeah, she was."

"Thanks to you." Ralph then reached out to take TJ's languid hand between his thumb and forefinger. "I don't know what this arcade was doing before you came along, kid, but whatever it was, we were doing it wrong."

TJ smiled. Ralph smiled back. But, then, the tender moment was rather rudely interrupted by some noises coming from the other side of the too-thin wall.

"Mmmmmm, _Mary_ …" Some giggling followed. "What's wrong?" "Your moustache is tickling me!" "Should I shave it off?" "Oh, no, of course not! I _like_ it…"

Ralph and TJ looked at each other, lips pressed together, cheeks puffing out as they suppressed their laughter. TJ threw his hands over his mouth.

"Mmmmmmm, Mary…you're wearing a new perfume…" "It's almond extract. I was baking earlier." "I love it. You smell _delicious_ …"

Ralph couldn't resist. He rapped on the wall lightly with his finger. "Hey, Gene, buddy, you find a martini bar out there? We can _heeeeeeeeer_ you!" On the other side of the wall, Mary turned crimson and gasped in embarrassment, and her thoroughly ticked-off lover swore loudly.

"Dammit, Ralph!" Gene yelled back. "How about you and your little _boy toy_ mind your own business?!"

TJ's eyes popped open. _Uh oh._ They slowly shifted to Ralph. Ralph was clenching his fists, and shaking all over. _UH OH…_

"What…did you…just call him?" The question came out through a clamped jaw.

"Your boy toy," came Gene's snide voice through the wall. "Your plaything. Your piece of fruitcake. Your _twink."_

"Oh, Gene, honey, don't," Mary's voice pleaded.

"Ralph, don't!" TJ cried, as watched Ralph's expression turn black and murderous. "He's not worth it—!"

It was too late. Ralph's fist punched clean through the wall, just above Gene and Mary's heads. "Ralph, please, no! He's drunk!" Mary shrieked, covering her head.

" _ **HE'S ALWAYS DRUNK!"**_ Gene ran for his life, down the hallway, into the Tappers crowd, which began to scream and frantically scramble out of the way as Ralph, seeing red and only red, enragedly tore his way through. _**"I'M GONNA RIP THAT STACHE OFF LIKE A BAND-AID!"**_

"Ralph!" Vanellope cried out. "What are you doing?!"

"Ralph, _NO!"_ Felix cried too, as he, his wife, and several other characters who knew Ralph well rushed forward to try and restrain him as Gene dove behind the bar to hide. Sour Bill, who had been busy wiping down a glass, nearly dropped it in sheer terror.

" _ **LET ME AT HIM! I'M GONNA KILL HIM!"**_ Ralph screamed, struggling against the many pairs of hands holding him back. _**"HOW DARE YOU INSULT TJ LIKE THAT! HE'S MY KID! HE'S MY—!"**_

TJ swooped in and threw himself in front of Ralph, his wings flapping rapidly. "Ralph, stop!" TJ shouted beggingly. "Look at me!" He reached out and grabbed Ralph's face. _"Look at me!_ Breathe!"

Ralph was huffing and puffing furiously, through his teeth. "No, not like that! Like this! Breathe in…!" TJ demonstrated, Ralph copied. "Breathe out! Good. Now again. Breathe in…" Ralph's tense shoulders began to relax slightly, though they still shook like a bobblehead. "Breathe out. Again. Keep looking at me. Breathe in…breathe out…breathe in…breathe out…"

Everyone was silent and on a knife's edge and TJ led Ralph through another few more rounds of breathing exercises. "Okay, good. Now what's the next line in this song? _Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kiiiiiiids_. Come on, Ralph, it's Elton. You know this."

Ralph squeezed his eyes shut, forcing his brain to function through the ingrained rage the programmers had cursed him with. It was like stumbling through a cloud of black smoke to find a flashlight. During an earthquake.

Finally, he managed, _"In fact, it's as cold as hell…"_ But then he growled when he saw Gene peak his infuriating little head out from behind the bar. TJ moved quickly to block his view.

"No! No! Focus! _And there's no one there to raise them if you diiiiiiid._ Now you."

" _And all this science, I don't understaaaaand…"_ Ralph sang, his voice cracking ever so slightly. _"It's j-just my job five days a week…"_

Ralph and TJ sang the next line together with soft harmony _._ It had gone so quiet in Tappers that everyone could hear them. _"A rocket maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan. I'm a rocket man…"_ Ralph gave one massive sigh of relief as the cloud cleared away, and he felt like himself again. Serene. Stable. "Ahhhhh. I'm okay. I'm fine. I-I'm not gonna kill anybody." The crowd collectively let out their held-up breath as well.

TJ let go of Ralph's face, and spun around to face Gene. "I just saved your skin, you stupid drunk. You're welcome," he spat at the mustachioed Nicelander. Gene scowled back at him. The hybrid then turned to the astonished onlookers. "I'm sorry, folks, but we're going to be ending a bit early tonight. Come on, Ralph. Let's go."

The famous pair left in silence, and the crowd parted just as silently to let them through. On the way out, Ralph reached out to ruffle Vanellope's hair. "Hey, Shank," he greeted the visitor. "Welcome to Litwak's."

Once Ralph and TJ were gone, Felix approached Gene, arms crossed, gaze steady and disappointed. "Gene, what did you say to them?"

"Only what the whole arcade is thinking," Gene sneered. He wasn't entirely lying. There _was_ some unseemly gossip about Ralph and TJ.

Felix narrowed his eyes. "Those rumours are absolutely untrue, and you know it. Ralph loves TJ like a _son._ You were just trying to get a rise out of him. As usual."

"And you're darn lucky Wings-And-Sings was here, slap-stache, or you'd be pudding by now. That's all I'm gonna say," Sergeant Calhoun added.

"Were you people _asleep?!_ That maniac just tried to attack me!" Gene exclaimed. He rubbed at his temples. "Bill, give me a double."

Sour Bill didn't move. "Dammit, I'll pour it!" Gene cried, reaching for the bottle under the counter. "This is what I get for helping you study for your bartending license?!" Suddenly, someone in the crowd yelled out, slicing through the tension like a hot knife through a hard stick of butter.

" _ **EVERYONE! IT'S MR. LITWAK! HE'S AT THE DOOR! HE'S HERE!"**_

"EVERYBODY, GET DOWN!" Tapper shouted. The nightclubbers hit the floor or scrambled to hide themselves as fast as they could, while Tapper killed the lights. The Tapper console screen went dark, as did all the others in the arcade as Mr. Litwak stepped in, followed closely behind by Stephanie and Robbie.

"Which game was it you saw on?" Mr. Litwak asked.

"It was, uhhhhh—" Robbie looked around. "Over here, somewhere. One of these, I think."

"I think we all need to try and party a little _less_ hardy," Felix whispered to his wife and kids. He got shushed by several other characters.

"Does this happen a lot at arcades?" Shank whispered to Vanellope, crouching down with her near the stage.

"Yeah, sometimes," Vanellope whispered back. "There was this one time a couple years back we almost got robbed in the middle of the night, and we all scared 'em off by blinking our lights and blasting our game music really loud."

Shank nodded approvingly. "Nice."

" _SHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"_ went a handful of nearby voices.

"Hey, Glitch n' Ditch! Zip it! You wanna get this game unplugged too?!" That was Bart Simpson snarking. He and Lisa were hiding together in Skrillex's huge guitar case, their cartoony eyes peaking through the slit.

"Hey, Wimpsons, stay in there and maybe Skrilly can get two bucks for the pair of ya at the pawn shop later," Vanellope snarked back.

" _SHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"_

"It doesn't look like anything's been left on," Mr. Litwak was saying now. "Yup. Everything looks just spiffy to me."

"Sorry for bothering you so late, Mr. Litwak," Stephanie said. "I was so sure I saw and heard something."

"That's quite alright, Stephanie. I'm glad you called. On the way here, I remembered that I left some paperwork in the office that I wanted to go through at home. So no harm done."

Stephanie smiled. Mr. Litwak was such a nice man. She'd always liked him, especially as a kid, when he'd never questioned why she spent so many hours wandering around the arcade, trying every game, avoiding going home for as long as possible. He'd offered her a free soda instead. And, then, after she turned fourteen, a job. Why couldn't more older people be like him?

Mr. Litwak turned to Robbie, "And I suppose this is your boyfriend."

"Robert Georson, sir," Robbie said, reaching out to shake Mr. Litwak's hand. "It's nice to meet you. Steph's told me a lot of good things about you, and this arcade. This is her favorite place ever."

"Mine too," Mr. Litwak joked, his foot shifting near the power strip Tapper was plugged into. In the nearly empty Game Central Station, Ralph and TJ stepped out together.

"Well, aren't you two a pair of hot messes," the Surge Protector remarked dryly. It was true. They were sweaty, their clothes were rumpled, their hair was all over the place, and TJ's stage mascara was smeared (he really needed to get some waterproof makeup somewhere). They ignored the Surge and, together, slumped down on Ralph's favourite bench.

"Thanks for cooling me down back there, kid," Ralph said, pushing his hair back with his hand.

"Thank Dr. McAfee," TJ replied. "And her chapter on managing anger and resentment."

"You're really into this therapy stuff now, aren't ya?"

"It's interesting and useful. She makes things make sense." A lot of things about the world had never made sense to TJ, like why so many were people out there hungry, when there was more than enough food for everyone, and why were bad guys so mistrusted, when their very presence in the game was the gear that kept the machine running smoothly? Dr. McAfee had a way of putting it all into perspective.

"You shouldn't let Gene get to you like that," TJ told his friend. "He's basic and bottom shelf. Like a bottle of cheap hooch. Smells like it too." Ralph chuckled lightly at that. "Also, one more thing, Ralph. I _am_ a twink."

"No, you're not," Ralph protested.

"Yeah, I am."

"You're not!"

"I am. Hold on, I'll look up the definition." TJ typed quickly and held up his phone for Ralph to see. "Here it is. Twink. Effeminate, nearly hairless young male in his teens or twenties." TJ gestured to himself. "Ummmmm?"

"Oh, come on! Labels don't mean anything. You're so much more than just a…that," Ralph insisted. "You're the reigning prince of this arcade, and my—one of my best friends," he quickly corrected himself with a little cough.

"And you…" TJ reached out to playfully poke Ralph's nose. "…are nine feet and six hundred and forty-three pounds of drama."

"Six hundred and _thirty_ pounds of drama, thank you very much," Ralph bragged. "I've lost weight."

" _ **COAST IS CLEAR!"**_ Someone from a console close to the door called out. _**"THEY'RE GONE!"**_ All at once the characters started babbling and crawling out of their hiding places.

"Phew!" "Oh, thank God." "Crisis averted." "That was _close."_ "Anyone else starving?" "Here, Tapper, I'll fix the hole Ralph made. It'll just take a sec..."

In the parking lot, Mr. Litwak slid into the driver's seat of his car, placing the bundle of papers in the passenger's seat. "Have a good night, Stephanie."

"You too, Mr. Litwak. And sorry again."

"It's alright, really." He clipped on his seat belt. "Your boyfriend seems very nice."

"He is."

"Stick with him," Mr. Litwak advised her. "Life's too hard to go it alone."

Stephanie blinked, taken aback by this tidbit of fatherly advice from her own boss. "I…I will. I am. Robbie and I have plans."

Mr. Litwak nodded. "Good. I'm happy for you, love. See you on Monday." Mr. Litwak drove off then, and Stephanie watched him go. Robbie came over and put his arm around her.

"Does he know?" he asked his girlfriend. Stephanie shook her head, and leaned it against his shoulder. It wasn't something she could tell Mr. Litwak. She admired the arcade owner more than anyone, but he wasn't family.

Meanwhile, in Game Central Station, Sonic and Dr. Eggman stumbled together out of the Tapper entrance. Dr. Eggman was slurring. "And then I said… _tranquilizer?!_ I barely know her!"

Sonic howled with laughter, slapping his in-game arch nemesis on the back. "Oh, man, that's rich!"

Dr. Eggman yawned exaggeratedly. "Good night, Sonic. Annihilate you in the morning." The inebriated bad guy then collapsed on another bench in the station before Sonic could stop him. In seconds, he was snoring and snorting.

Sonic sighed. "Aw, great. Real cute, Egghead." He spotted the famous wrecker and the equally famous hybrid and sauntered over to them. "Ralph. TJ. Home slices. That performance back there? That. Was. _Awesome!"_

"Thanks Sonic," Ralph said.

Sonic turned to TJ. "So what did the mini bar on legs say to you, anyway?"

"He called me Ralph's little boy toy," TJ answered, shrugging. "Just to be gross."

Sonic made a face. "Ugh. I've never liked that guy. You should've just let Ralph pound him," he said. "Anyway, I have _not_ had that much fun since Pac-Man's bachelor party back in ninety-four. Do you remember that, Ralph? Frogger got drunk as a skunk and he—"

"No, I don't remember," Ralph cut in sharply. "Because I wasn't there. I wasn't invited."

"Wait, really? I could've sworn you were there." Sonic shook his head. "Sorry, I'm _soooooooo_ sloshed right now." He snapped his gloved fingers, trying to tap into his store of past partying. "What about Luigi's surprise birthday party in ninety-eight?"

"I wasn't there."

"But—!"

"I wasn't there, Sonic."

"Okay, what about when everyone got together for—?!"

"Sonic, buddy, your memory ain't keeping up with your feet," Ralph said. "Let me make this easier for you. Anything that happened before two thousand and twelve…I wasn't there. I wasn't invited. I had no friends. _No one liked me."_

The station fell into an awkward silence that was only broken by Dr. Eggman's sleepy mumbling. _"Mmmmmmm. No, Mom, I don't wanna go to school today. I wanna stay home and plot world domination with you…."_ He then rolled over and fell off the bench. "Wha—?! Where am I?! Where's the pinball wizard?!" He held his head and groaned.

"I, uh, gotta get this big lunkhead home," Sonic said. He cleared his throat. TJ looked away uncomfortably, pulling a strand of sweaty hair behind his ears. Ralph stared at his feet.

"Listen, Ralph," the hedgehog began, and Ralph looked up to meet his face. "People did like you. But you kinda really gave it off that you didn't like people. So we all just…stayed away. And I'm not gonna lie, that temper of yours _is_ kind of scary. But I'm glad to see you're working on coping mechanisms." He raised a sailor salute to TJ. "Kudos to you, dude. And goodnight to both of you."

Sonic took his bad guy by the sleeve and began gently but insistently tugging him towards their game entrance, while Dr. Eggman kept threatening to nod off again. Ralph, looking crestfallen, placed his head down in his hands.

"Did you see me dance?" Vanellope asked Shank back in Tapper. They were sitting on bar stools, nursing root beers as the crowd lingered. On stage, the band was playing a tune on their own to keep things lively. Sergeant Calhoun sat on the piano bench with her husband, their hips touching, humming softly as she turned the sheet music pages for him.

"Yeah, I did, near the end," Shank said. "You looked like you were having a good time. But, V, is this something you want to do _forever?"_

"Not _forever,"_ Vanellope replied. "Just until Ralph loves me again."

"He does love you," Shank argued. "And he always will."

"Until he loves me _best_ again," Vanellope corrected herself. Shank sighed.

"V, come back to Slaughter Race with me," she urged. "Leave Ralph and TJ to their music. This isn't your scene."

"I can't." Vanellope shook her head. "Shank, I _can't._ If I leave now, Ralph will forget all about me. Yeah, he will. TJ's so perfect, he won't want anyone else."

"TJ's not perfect," Shank protested. "No one is perfect."

"Oh, he is. He really is. He's _perfect._ Bud's the full package deal." Vanellope counted on her fingers. "Singer, dancer, Piano Man…you name it."

"You're looking at him with green-eyed envy."

Vanellope closed her green eyes, and she was back in the ballroom, being dipped, being happy, being TJ's little sister, as Felix had urged to be. _No, Shank. I'm looking up at him in awe. I want to be like him._

In Game Central Station, TJ reached out to touch Ralph's arm. "Did you really never get invited anywhere? For thirty years?" he asked.

Ralph nodded.

"Nowhere at all?"

Ralph nodded again.

"Not even out for a root beer?"

Ralph shook his head. "Kid, I wasn't even invited to my own game's thirtieth anniversary, remember? If you can think of anything sadder, let me know, and we can write a song about it."

TJ's mouth fell open, and he closed it again, pressing his dry lips together as his eyes wettened. He tried to imagine what it was like. Days, years, months, with no one to talk to, nothing to do except work and sleep and then repeat. He wasn't that old yet, his days being alive were few in comparison, and there were many experiences he hadn't yet been through. One of them was being lonely. He'd never been lonely. His uncles had raised him with care and attention and discipline and routine. And he'd never been friendless either. Ralph had always been there.

What would his life had been if Ralph hadn't taken the time to be his friend? He would have been stuck in Hero's Duty, an army ward forever, trying to be useful, despite not really having a role. Who would have taken him to Game Central Station for the first time? Who would have taken him paint balling, or out for a burger and shake? Who would have taken him to the internet? Who would have sung and danced with him? Who would have wanted to?

"Ralph…" TJ began.

"Yeah, kid?" Ralph asked, into his hands.

TJ swallowed down the lump that had formed in his throat. "I'll do it."

"Do what?"

"The Roger Rabbit anniversary party." TJ said. "I'll do it. I'll do it for you."

 _I won't be showing yet,_ the hybrid thought, his mind racing, doing quick calculations. Or maybe he would be, a tiny, tiny bit. _I could wear something loose. Or I could wear all black. Black is slimming._

Ralph looked up, his face alight with astonishment. "You…you will?!"

TJ nodded. Then, a stroke of genius suddenly came to him. _A corset! That's it! I'll get one of those!_

"Kid!" Ralph jumped up from the bench. _"KID!_ You've just made my life! _"_

He scooped TJ up and together they spun around Game Central Station, whooping with joy, with TJ's arms flung around Ralph's neck. Of course, it was at that moment that Vanellope and Shank appeared.

"You have no idea how happy I am right now!" Ralph cried out. "I feel like I could fly over the moon!"

"Please don't start crying," TJ begged as Ralph set him down. "If you start crying, I'm going to start crying, and it's gonna mess up my contact lenses."

"I'm not crying! I-I have allergies!" Ralph sniffled and wiped his eyes and nose with a handkerchief from his pants pocket. "OhMyDisney, stock up your shelves and hang on to your princess crowns! Here comes Hurricane Ralph and TJ, and we're gonna blow you away!"

Shank reached down to squeeze Vanellope shoulders. _See, V?_ Ralph looked over and spotted them.

"Kid!" Ralph cried out to Vanellope. "Run and tell the other Sweet Swingers! Roger Rabbit party's a go! TJ said yes! He said _**YES!"**_

* * *

 **End of Chapter**

* * *

This chapter is way too fucking long, I know, but there were so many subplots I wanted to catch up with. Please leave reviews! I thrive on reviews!


	11. Chapter 11

Again, sorry this took so long. I've been so busy lately. Only because work's slowed down a bit, I've had time to work on my writing projects. Hope this chapter's worth the wait I put you guys through.

Warning. This chapter explores the more perverse and unsavory side of the internet. If you're not comfortable with that sort of thing, don't keep reading.

* * *

 **Rewriting the Program:** **Chapter Eleven**  
 **New Roles to Play and New Lines to Learn**

* * *

The Dark Web was as shady and active as ever. Amidst the smog and grime of the internet's underworld, fake passports were issued, social security numbers were traded, illegal lines of credit were tapped into, and stolen goods were purchased at a reduced price. And in a cozy corner of this smoggy cesspool of crime, Double Dan sat at his desk, shifting through a pile of correspondence, most of it virus commission requests. On his desk was a bowl of snacks, which he routinely popped into his little brother's mouth and then his own. Suddenly, there was a gentle rapping on his door.

He looked up, and saw a red heeled foot, attached to a shapely red leg, step out from behind the corner. Then, the rest of the woman followed, and she stood tall and assured in the virus-apothecary like an old acquaintance dropping by for a coffee and a friendly chat. Not that he was going to offer her either.

He narrowed his eyes at her in annoyance at this unannounced visit. "Cheryl."

"Hello, Daniel." Dr. McAfee replied with well-practiced civility. "Long time, no see. How have you been?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," he spat rudely. "Are those supposed to be funny?" He was referring to the comically large red sunglasses covering most of her face, concealing her eyes from his perpetually abhorring and untrusting glare.

"It's a new look I'm trying out. Do you think they're a bit too much?" She didn't even flinch as Double Dan slithered out from behind his desk to stand tall and towering before her. She stood her ground, as she always did in her dealings with him. She titled her head up slightly.

"What are you staring at?" he demanded.

She shrugged. "I don't know. What am I staring at? You tell me."

"If you're staring at my little brother—" At that, on cue, Dr. McAfee raised a hand to lift up her glasses. She locked eyes with him, her luminous, crimson gaze cool and steady.

"Your little brother is staring at _me,"_ she responded smoothly. She wasn't lying. Little Dan's googly eyes were gaping. But she didn't glance sideways at him, not for a second. "Please tell him it's impolite to stare at a lady. A big brother's duty is to be a good role model." She let her sunglasses drop back over her eyes.

Double Dan sneered at her. "What do you want, doctor? Make it quick. I'm a busy man."

"I can see that." The psychiatrist glanced about at all the viruses festering in their containers and juices. None of them could hurt her, but she could certainly harm them. She slipped her hands in the pockets of her coat, red and sleek like the rest of her. "I need a freezing virus. That's all."

Double Dan raised an eyebrow. "For—?"

"A game on involuntary lockdown," she answered. "The characters want out."

"And why should I provide them with an 'out?'"

Dr. McAfee pulled out a fat wad of cash, mere pocket change from her site's steady cash flow. "Will this cover it?"

Double Dan glared down at the money. "I'd prefer Arthur back," he said.

"I'm afraid that's not possible," she replied. "You see, he and I have bonded, and he no longer functions as a malicious virus. It wouldn't be worth your time to reclaim him."

Growling under his breath, Double Dan snatched the cash from her hand and turned to worm his way back to his desk. "You know I've always respected you, doctor, even after years of your site's products killing off my work."

Dr. McAfee gave a playful little smile with her lipstick-clad mouth. "And I've always respected you, Daniel. Your work keeps my site up and running. But Arthur's staying with me. Finders, keepers."

Double Dan grumbled irritably at that as he pulled a cooler out from behind his desk. From it emitted wisps of cool blue-gray air.

"This one's fresh," he told her. "It'll freeze the game entirely for exactly five minutes, immobilizing everything except the characters themselves. Hopefully, their sorry behinds can run fast, because when those five minutes are up, it melts, and that's it. The game goes back on lockdown." He pushed the cooler towards her. "All yours."

Dr. McAfee knew perfectly well how freezing viruses worked. She scooped up the cooler by the handle as she would a handbag. "Five minutes is more than enough time. Thank you so much. I'm so glad you and I are friends." He responded with more sore grumbling. "Oh, and by the way, your cousin is taking a test with me today. I'll say hi to him for you."

"Just take the Freezer and get out of my office," Dan snapped, suddenly engrossed in some papers on his desk and not looking up at her.

The doctor shrugged nonchalantly. "As you wish." But, as she was turning to leave, the slug-man, frowning as he remembered something, suddenly spoke up.

"By the way," he said to her back. "You still married to that grammar-loving shmuck?" he asked with mild curiosity. "Bloody strange you ever married him in the first place."

Dr. McAfee turned around. "I've paid you for a cold virus, not for your hot take on my personal life. Have a good day, Daniel." She waggled her huge sunglasses at him in farewell. "Or, as we say in the Anti-Virus District, stay safe."

And then she was gone. Double Dan, his fist gripped around a ballpoint pen, listened to the receding clicking of her heels going up the stairs.

" _I've paid you for a cold virus, not for your hot take,"_ he mocked her under his breath. "She thinks she's a comedian now too, does she?"

Little Dan squeaked out something from his brother's neck. "I don't care if you like her!" Double Dan spat. "I don't!" Little Dan squeaked out something else. "That's not what I meant when I said I like the sight of red! _"_ More squeaking. Double Dan pounded both fists down on his desk. "Yes, I _know_ the sunglasses were a good power move—!"

"God, what a prick," the good doctor muttered to herself, whipping off the helpful sunglasses as she power-walked out in the open internet, her lady's pumps pounding the platform as befitting a woman on a mission. Well, that little bit of unpleasantness was over and done with. Now came the easy part.

An anthropomorphic white fox girl was waiting anxiously for her at the entrance to a game called Detention Slip. "Do you have it?" she asked the older woman, as she approached.

Dr. McAfee raised the cooler to show her. "This isn't for a picnic."

The fox girl gulped nervously as she regarded the leaking cooler. "Will it hurt them?"

"No, it won't, I promise," the doctor replied. "Your friends will get out unharmed, Marcy, but you need to text them and warn them. They need to head for the exit as soon as they see ice."

Marcy looked back at the game's barred entranceway, her sharp blue eyes hateful and thoroughly disgusted. "My best friends are trapped in there. My _squad."_ She yanked out her cell phone and began to type furiously as Dr. McAfee set the cooler down and flicked open the latches. "I freakin' hate the internet! The only people who play this game are greasy perverts who can't get girlfriends!"

One such player was absorbed in the game at that very moment. On the screen of his desktop computer, a teenage girl in a blue and white Japanese student's uniform stood in a classroom, her face devoid of emotion as she recited her lines. There was an air of defeat and resignation about her that the player didn't notice. He grinned lecherously instead.

" _I'm sorry, Teacher. I've been so bad. I'm been so naughty. Will you punish me, please?"_

His mouse cursor moved towards the icon of paddle. The schoolgirl turned around and leaned over the desk, exposing her behind to her player. She squeezed her eyes shut, preparing herself for what was to come. She had become so accustomed to it that she had learned to crawl into a dark hole inside herself until it was over.

But, this time, it didn't come.

Instead, she suddenly felt very cold.

She opened her eyes. All around her, ice was spilling across the classroom like a drink knocked over a tablecloth, spreading from floor to ceiling, overpowering Detention Slip and freezing all its functions. Behind her, the paddle meant for her rear end was frozen in mid-air. In front of the screen, the player clicked on his mouse furiously.

"Hey, what the hell?!" he cried out.

Another adolescent girl in a school uniform came bursting into the room. "Yuri, we have to go! Now!" She grabbed her friend by the arm, and shouted directly at the player, "You should be in jail, pervert!" She spat on the ground before her to make her point.

The player blinked back at her in stunned confusion, and watched the two girls race out the classroom together. Seconds afterwards, his computer crashed, and presented him with the much-dreaded blue screen. He pounded it with his fist. _**"GOD DAMMIT!"**_

Outside the game, Marcy squeezed her paws at her sides and bounced restlessly on the spot. "Come on, come on! Come on, come on, come on!"

Dr. McAfee was holding her breath as well. _Come on, girls. Five minutes._ She exhaled it in one sweeping sigh as four girls, all young, all similarly dressed, came charging out of the entrance, faces flushed from the cold and the mad dash to freedom.

Marcy squealed and raced to her friends, arms outstretched, and the girls, crying with happiness, clustered together for a tight-knit group hug. Dr. McAfee watched them, her relief quickly changing over to revulsion and horror as she took note of their youth.

 _My God, none of them are a day over eighteen._ They were all in school uniforms, the miniskirts too short to leave much to the imagination. _They're little girls. Children._ This wasn't her first time encountering such circumstances, not by a long shot, but her stomach churned regardless. _Those monsters..._

The girls untangled themselves from their embrace only to cluster around Dr. McAfee and wrap her in a second claustrophobic group hug. "We're free, we're free!" "Thank you, doctor!" "Thank you so much!" "I thought we'd be trapped in there forever!" "How can we ever thank you?!"

The flustered doctor called out, "Girls, girls, it's alright, you don't have to thank me…!" But thank her a hundred more times they did, while trapping her in their aggressively thankful grasp.

"It's Double Dan they should be thanking," she thought as she squirmed in their Venus fly trap of ecstatic gratitude, forcing herself to smile dotingly when all she wanted to do was cry for them. "With luck, none of them will ever have to meet him."

* * *

"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you? Wait until the arcade closes and I'll come with you."

"I'll be fine, Ralph."

"We could go shopping…"

"As if you need more clothes!"

"Okay, fair point. Do you have your phone?"

"Yes."

"It's fully charged?"

"Yes."

"And you'll call me if anything goes wrong?"

" _Yes,_ Ralph."

"And you've got enough sandwiches and snacks? Band-aids? Tylenol? Your Visa card for emergencies? Hand sanitizer? Pepper spray?"

"Yes! I've got all of it! Ralph, oh my God, you need to chill!" TJ had to laugh. "I'm going to the internet on my own for one day, not camping in the woods for a week! I've been there tons of times! What are you so scared of?!"

 _I'm scared you'll find something on the internet you like more than me,_ Ralph wanted to say. _I'm scared you won't come back._

Aloud, he said, "The web's a real dangerous place, kid."

TJ sighed. It had been tricky enough to get his uncles to agree to excuse him from his daily chores and lessons in Hero's Duty to make his very first solo excursion to the internet. He'd presented them with an eloquent, rehearsed speech. _I'm old enough. I'm mature enough. I won't get into any trouble. I know which seedy places to avoid._ His alibi? Visiting Dr. McAfee at Firewall, her website. _I need her guidance for…navigating my adolescent confusion. Clyde only really works with other bad guys, so he can't offer me the specialized advice I'm looking for. Dr. McAfee can._ Then, he hit them with the clasped hands and the irresistible puppy dog eyes, complete with swishing, mascara-enhanced lashes. _Please? Pretty please? Pretty please with a Pac-Man cherry on top?_

They'd agreed, in the end, on the firm condition that TJ was home for dinner at a reasonable hour. His well-meaning but overprotective show partner, on the other hand, was a tougher jury to win over.

"Come on, Ralph!" he pleaded. "Nothing is going to happen to me! I'll be home on time and in one piece!" Just then, a warm, golden light began to slowly stream into the station. "Look, the sun's rising! You've got a building to smash up. Lay waste to Gene's place for me, okay?"

Ralph nodded. "Will do. For sure. His precious home bar is toast." The bad guy cleared his throat. "But, kid, I gotta ask..."

"What?"

 _Why do you want to talk to Dr. McAfee so bad? Why not me? Your best friend in the whole wide world?_ TJ stared at him expectedly. Ralph reeled back. "Never mind. It's not important."

 _Don't be clingy. Don't be clingy. Don't, for the love of mod, be clingy._ Ralph held on to the mental image of his virus-clones chasing TJ down like the savage animals they were. Then, his imagination went a step too far, and one of his clones tore a screaming TJ's beautiful wings off, to prevent him from flying away. Ralph shuddered, and quickly blinked away that horrific scene. _It can't come to that. Not again. Let him go, even if it hurts._

What TJ did next surprised him. Said beautiful wings fluttering, the hybrid floated up to kiss Ralph's cheek.

It was just one quick peck, one simple gesture of filial affection, one brief moment of lips on skin, but it was enough to send Ralph's head into a spin. The virus-clones vanished at once in a puff of smoke. His eyes blinked rapidly. Vanellope had never kissed him goodbye. No one ever had, not since his own dear Mama, when he was a little munchkin. And, no, that weird smooch with that Disney frog (What had been his name? Navel? Navy?) didn't count.

TJ had figured this bold power move would throw Ralph off his guard. It gave him just enough time to make a quick, smooth exit, through the Wifi entrance. Flying backwards, he rapidly waved his hand. "See ya later, Ralph!"

And then, with a flash of his wings, he was gone.

Ralph swallowed hard. "See you later, Twiggy Jiggy."

 _Off he goes, into the world, all on his own. Without me._ He raised a hand to lightly touch the spot where TJ had kissed him. _Does this mean it's okay for me to kiss him sometime? Not that I'm dying to or anything._ He didn't know the rules. He'd never had a father. His Mama had raised him all on her own. What was the protocol, with a son?

"Strange way for a teenage boy to behave," the Surge Protector remarked behind him.

Ralph spun around, annoyed to have his inner musing interrupted. "Oh, I'm sorry, are you an expert on teenagers?" he snapped at him. "Are you the Puberty Patrol now too? Give me a break."

"I'm just saying," the Surge Protector began. "Proceed with caution. People are already saying rather unsettling things about you and that kid. I've heard it with my own two ears."

Ralph huffed. "And here's what I say to that, with my own two hands."

The Surge Protector glared. "There is no need for lewd gestures, sir," He checked his watch. "And you should be in your game by now."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm going. Don't get your circuits in a knot." But Ralph didn't go without one last longing glance over his shoulder.

 _Don't fall in love with the web, TJ,_ he inwardly pleaded. _Nothing and no one there will ever love you as much as I do._

"I betcha he's visiting Turbo," Rancis was saying to some of the other racers, gathered around the Sugar Rush starting line, waiting for the arcade's opening, and their first player. "That's why he wants to go on his own."

"Why would he go visit Turbo?" Vanellope demanded. "He hates him."

"How do _you_ know? He's never even met him," Rancis snapped at her.

"Look," Vanellope began. I've lived on the internet. Trust me, you can hate someone's guts with the fiery intensity of the sun, without ever meeting them. It's easy. They just have to say or do something 'problematic.'" Vanellope lifted her hands off her steering wheel and made quotation marks with her fingers. "But I don't think that's what TJ's up to. He's up to _something,_ but it's not that."

Vanellope was curious. Was TJ really going to just go see that therapist lady, or did he have a detour planned? Was he going to try and sneak into one of those "grownup" games Shank never let her visit? Was he meeting up with someone, perhaps? Was he going on a date?

Vanellope grinned to herself. Oh man, Ralph would freak out sooooooooo hard over that! She could already hear him. _NO ONE's good enough for my show buddy, especially not—!_

"Quarter alert," droned Sour Bill dully into the microphone from the royal podium. "Racers, start your engines."

Vanellope sighed. Another day, another dull, predictable block of races that she was going to win for sure. She missed Slaughter Race so badly. The sacrifice she was making for Ralph's friendship was getting harder to bear every day.

Shank had gone home alone, but not without some final words of warning to her young friend. "You're aiming for a past that doesn't exist anymore, V. Ralph's changed a lot too. He's not the same person he was before. Even if TJ disappeared tomorrow, things still would never be the same between you two."

Vanellope knew that, which was why she was switching tactics _. If you can't beat 'em, join them,_ as the saying went. She was going to be TJ's little sister, his pal, his confidante, his dance partner too, once she got good enough to match him on the floor. He was the bridge to Ralph's heart, and she would pay the toll a thousand times over. Though it wasn't as if she was starting to _actually like him,_ or anything like that…

"So you choose a racer like this," Stephanie was patiently explaining to a rather shy five-year-old girl who was trying out Sugar Rush for the first time. "Put your hands on the steering wheel, _carefully,_ like this…"

The console steering wheel Mr. Litwak had received around a year ago from an anonymous (and, evidently, very generous) donator was holding up nicely, but it was better not to take chances. The young ones tended to play a bit too rough.

"Do you like the pink girl?" Stephanie asked. The five-year-old nodded wordlessly. "Okay, so we're gonna pick the pink girl. She has a funny name. Wanna hear it? Taffyta _Muttonfudge!_ Bleh!" She made a face. The five-year-old made a face too and giggled.

Nearby, Mr. Litwak smiled as he watched Stephanie and the young customer. Inside the console, Vanellope drummed her fingers on the steering wheel restlessly as her mind rotated around one thought like a bee buzzing around spilled soda. _What is TJ doing? WHAT is TJ doing? What is TJ_ _ **DOING?**_

"Hold on!" she called out suddenly, making all heads spin towards her. "I'm dropping out for the day! You guys race without me!"

"With pleasure," Taffyta muttered under his breath. Vanellope shot her a look.

"Where are you going?!" Candlehead called out to her.

"The internet!" Vanellope called back as she drove away. She had to find out what TJ was up to. It was gnawing at her like a starving stray on a bone. "I'll be back for rehearsal later!"

"You'd better be!" Taffyta shouted. "I wont be humiliated on international TV because of you!" They racers watched Vanellope drive off, before they attention was forced back to the day's first race.

"What are you up to, TJ?" Vanellope asked herself aloud as she headed at full speed for Sugar Rush's exit. "What's so secretive that you gotta do it all by yourself, Ralph-free?"

* * *

Online in the Search Engine distract, at Knowsmore's stand, a non-NetUser approached the counter. He was clad in an oversized army trench coat and black sunglasses that concealed a good portion of his face. A plain black cap covered up his hair.

"Hello," TJ greeted the egg-shaped provider of information politely.

"Why, hello there! Welcome to my search engine! Hmmmmm…." Knowsmore looked down at his book. "You don't seem to have a search history."

"I deleted my search history." All of it. On every search engine he'd ever used.

Knowsmore turned his book to a fresh page. "Then let's start a new one for you, shall we? What can I help you find today, young man?"

TJ began. "I need to find a cor—"

"Corsage?" Knowsmore finished for him. "Corvette? Coral reef? 'Coraline' by Neil Gaiman? Coronation Street?"

TJ blinked. "No, not—"

"Notre Dame? Notary public? Not Another Teen Movie? Notting Hill? Not the father of my child?"

TJ turned to the bunny and kitten leaning against the stand. Puddles and Bun-Bun's game was going through a major update, and they were hanging out at Knowsmore's to pass the time.

"How do I hack this?" he asked them.

Puddles took his mouth off his milkshake straw. "Say it all in one breath, and then slap that sucker like a baby's bottom." He pointed at the search bar.

"Thanks." TJ turned back to Knowsmore, took a deep breath, and blurted out fast, in one go, "Slimming corsets for male dancers." He smacked the bar.

Knowsmore spazzed and the lights behind him flashed erratically. "I have found twenty-one results for your query!" he announced at last.

TJ flipped through them. "No, no, no, no…" He wasn't a burlesque dancer, and he certainly wasn't a stripper. He needed something simple and functional, not seductive. Then, he found a website that sold costumes pieces for theatre troupes and party and event entertainers. It looked safe enough, and they advertised a wide selection of corsets for both genders, in different shapes and sizes.

"Looks like we have a winner." He tapped it with his finger. "Thanks, Knowsmore."

"You're _very_ welcome, dear boy! Happy shopping!" Vanellope, squinting from her hiding spot nearby, tried to make out what TJ was selecting. A chair popped out for him, a travel box formed around him, and off he went, into the hustling web traffic. Vanellope immediately darted over to Knowsmore's stand.

"Why, hello again!" Knowsmore greeted her sweetly. "Long time, no see, Miss von Schweetz!"

"Hi, Knowsmore! Lookin' sharp!" She cocked finger guns at him before jabbing her thumbs to the left. "Ya mind tellin' me where he's going?"

"Who?"

"Him." She pointed again. "TJ."

Knowsmore's cap nearly hit the ceiling in shock.

"That was TJ?!" he cried, grabbing his egg-shaped head. "Of the BuzzzTube musical sensation 'Ralph and TJ?! Holy sh—shawarma! I didn't even recognize him! I didn't get his autograph!"

"We didn't either!" Bun-Bun cried out in dismay.

Puddles hurled his milkshake cup at the ground. _ **"DANG IT!"**_

"His name's only two letters. Not a big loss," Vanellope said. "Where's he going?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you, dear. The search history of others is strictly—" Vanellope leapt over the stand and started flipping through the book. She found TJ's nearly empty page.

"Corsets?!" she exclaimed. " _Corsets?!_ Why would he want a—?!" Vanellope frowned, suddenly remembered the pink legwarmers.

"Hmpth. Figures. It'll be purple eyeshadow next." She clicked on the site. "Thanks, Knowsmore!"

"Get his autograph!" Bun-Bun shouted after her as her web-surfing box carried her off.

"Will do…!" she called over her shoulder as she sped away, hot on TJ's trail. She turned to face forwards. "…not! Ha!" Vanellope paused. "Wait, no, that's not right. Will do…will not do…" Coincidentally, at that moment, she sped right past Grammarly dot com.

"So the girls are alright?" Frank Grammarly was asking his wife over the phone. Below his high platform, his small army of assistants were hunched over desks, painstakingly correcting all the mistakes in the essays, work documents, emails, and speeches the NetUsers brought to them.

"Yes. They all got out, safe and sound."

"Thank _goodness,"_ he breathed. "Programmers who use their skills to produce games like _that_ should be imprisoned, the key melted, the bail in the billions."

"I couldn't agree with you more," Dr. McAfee replied, as she waited in line for coffee. "Thank you for finding that house for them. It's perfect. They're settling in as we speak."

"Of course. I'm glad I could help with this matter. Tell them to call me if they need anything."

"Will do."

"That's not grammatically—"

"Frank, please," the doctor pleaded tiredly. "It's been a rough morning."

"My apologies."

"It's alright." Dr. McAfee reached the coffee bar counter. "I'll have a—"

"—tall Columbian dark roast, one milk, one sugar," Frank jokingly recited with her. "Your coffee order changes as seldom as your color scheme."

Dr. McAfee had to chuckle at that. Frank knew her so well. Perhaps Double Dan was right. It _was_ bloody strange that she and Frank had ever gotten married. They'd made such a good pair of best friends, once upon a time. Why had they spoiled that?

TJ was dropped off at the entrance to Spotlight Costumes and Dancewear dot com. The site's entrance was adorned with plush red stage curtains. Staring down at him from above were the Comedy and Tragedy theatre masks. Comedy's expression was welcoming. Tragedy's was trying to warn him about something. But TJ, not one to be bossed around by costume pieces, ignored them and entered through the curtains.

Vanellope landed at the site's entrance not long after. "What are _you_ staring at?" she snapped at the theatre masks. "Mind your own business!" An ironic piece of advice coming from someone who was spending the morning snooping on her rival.

She slipped through the curtains, seconds before Dr. McAfee passed by the site with her large takeout coffee. The psychiatrist looked up at the masks, smiled, tipped her sunglasses in greeting, and passed on.

"This is an honor! A great honor!" The site's Netizen-in-charge announced flamboyantly, approaching TJ with arms extended. He was dressed in full-on Shakespearean garb, complete with a sweeping velvet cape that swished about dramatically as he moved. "It's not everyday we have record-breaking BuzzzTubers grace us with their custom!"

He helped TJ out of his trench coat, and regarded TJ's dazzling wings with exaggerated delight. "My, my! How lovely! Such a _splendid s_ hade of green! Like a meadow of lush grass in the early spring! Oh, to be so blessed by character design!" The costumer heaved a great, theatrical sigh of longing as he fluttered his rather comically long eyelashes. "Now, what can I help you find today, my young heartthrob?!"

"I need a corset," TJ explained. "Something that will make my stomach look flat, but at the same time let me move around. It's for a big performance."

"You've come to the right place, then!" The costumer took TJ's hand. "Follow me, if you please!"

"Oh, wow," TJ breathed, as they stepped into the main concourse. _Ralph would love this place._ This site was a thespian's _dream,_ with four open floors of everything a performer could possibly need, and then some. Costumes, masks, wigs, makeup, shoes…and all those little bits and pieces that made a look complete, as far as the eye could see. You could walk in as yourself and come out as anyone you wanted, it seemed. You could take on any role.

The NetUsers shopped independently for what they needed for their own upcoming roles, whatever they were. TJ watched one NetUser throw what had to be a dozen bottles of silver spray paint into their cart, while another selected a jeweled turban fit for an Arabian prince, with slippers to match. TJ's eye was caught by an intriguing-looking steampunk long coat with gold buckles, but a NetUser beat him to it before he could even open his mouth and ask for it. Into the cart it went, and the words "Out of stock" flashed in its place.

As the usual customers were perfectly capable of fending for themselves, the Netizen gave all his attention to the distinguished visitor, and pulled out a measuring tape. "I'll need your measurements, of course."

"Sure." TJ spread his arms out, and stood stock-still as the Netizen measured him lengthwise, width-wise, and everywhere else he could find. This wasn't the first time TJ had been fitted for stage outfit, so he knew the drill. His minded wandered as he waited patiently for the dimensions of his body to be calculated in centimeters. But when the Netizen's hands touched his stomach, he flinched.

"No need to feel self-conscious," the shopkeeper-slash-tailor assured him kindly. "I have seen and costumed every body type there is. You have a perfectly fine, slender dancer's figure."

 _Not for long,_ TJ thought, as he began to really feel the irony of his situation. "Could you make it so I can tie it or button in the front?" he asked, as the Netizen rolled up the tape. "Without help?"

" _Oui oui!_ As you wish! _Excuse-moi!"_ The Netizen then disappeared behind a curtain above which flashed a sign that read _Employees Only,_ temporarily leaving the hybrid to his own devices on the site.

TJ figured that, while he waited, he might as well browse through some of the merchandise. He randomly selected a rack of costumes to comb through curiously. _Wow. This place has everything. Even…_ Yup. There they were. Copies of his and Ralph's suits from "Who Doesn't Love a Bad Guy," for anyone who wished to cosplay them. Ralph's shirt and overalls, too, for anyone wanting the more retro look. Text flashing above them warned that there was only limited stock left.

TJ kept on shifting through the clothes. Then, suddenly, a head popped out from between a flapper dress and a mad scientist's lab coat. _**"BOO!"**_

" **AHHHH!"** TJ jumped backwards, nearly knocking over display of Venetian masquerade masks. "Vanellope?!" he cried.

"The one and only!" Vanellope hopped out from between the costumes and looked around excitedly. "Man, this place is _stocked!_ Look at all this! How have I never been here before?!'

"You've never been in show business before," TJ answered. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"What are _you_ doing here?" Vanellope retorted. "What do you want a corset for? Don't you and Ralph already have a tailor?" She did a fake gasp. "Are you _cheating_ on your _tailor?!"_

"No, I'm…" He was starting to miss the days where she hated his guts, and him hers, though he wasn't that person anymore. Evidently, neither was she. Progress came at a price.

"Okay, look," he began. "Here's the deal. I'm…" He took a deep breath and lied his face off. "…anxious about my weight."

Vanellope blinked. "What do you mean, you're anxious about your weight?! Look at you! You're a twig!"

"A twig with an image to uphold," TJ replied. "You know how the camera adds on ten pounds? A corset will take off fifteen."

Vanellope stared at him. _Buy it. Buy it. Buy the lie._ "I've been dieting, too," he added.

"OHHHHHHH!" Vanellope exclaimed. "It all makes sense now! So _that's_ why you don't have the munchies anymore! You didn't even _touch_ those choco-mint and marshmallow mini pies Candlehead brought to rehearsal! Those were actually pretty darn good, even though I'm, like, ninety-nine percent sure Candlehead lied about baking them herself from scratch…"

The smell of those sickeningly sweet treats had turned TJ's stomach sour. His picky, unborn child wanted nothing to do with rich desserts, it seemed. It rejected the delights of Sugar Rush as strongly as Vanellope did.

"It's not, like, a crazy crash diet or anything," TJ told her. He was already knee-deep in fibs. He might as well go up to the waist. "It's just, you know, less sugar and less carbohydrates. Don't tell Ralph about it. You know how he gets. He'll freak out and jump to conclusions. He'll think I'm starving myself."

"Yeah, our Ralphie boy sure does do that, doesn't he? Freak out."

"He can't help it."

"I know—" They were interrupted by the sudden reappearance of the shopkeeper.

"My apologies, but I neglected to ask, what color of corset suits your fancy?" He held out a chart of colour shades.

"Ummmm, this one, I guess," TJ said, tapping on a mud-colored brown. It didn't really matter what color it was. He'd be wearing it under his clothes.

The Netizen vanished behind his curtain yet again. Seconds later, he emerged bearing a stack of dark brown corsets, which he presented to TJ on bended knee, like a royal servant making an offering to his prince. TJ awkwardly accepted the bundle, with a mumbled thanks.

"Wait out here," he instructed Vanellope. In the change room TJ chided himself for lying to her. _She's the last person you should be lying to!_ His fingers shook slightly as he did up the buttons in front. _This was supposed to be an easy errand day, god dammit._ He turned around to look at himself in the full-length mirror. _Well, hello._

He looked _good._ Really good. He felt…well, sexy wasn't the right word. He was too young for sexy. Powerful? No, that wasn't right either _. In control_ and _contained_ came to mind. With the corset on, snugly fit around his lean torso, his body felt like his own again, not just a vessel for making new Cybugs, or something for BuzzTube viewers to freely comment on. He posed this way and that, pleased by how neatly shaped he looked at every angle. Was this how women felt when they tried on new lingerie?

"How's everything in there?" called out the Netizen. "Are you in need of a new size, a new style—?"

"Nope! I think I've found the perfect one on the first try!" TJ called back. He suddenly felt a little sad, and wished that Ralph was here so he could show him this fantastic new find. But then he remembered the reason he'd come here alone in the first place…

"Young lady, put that down _at once!"_ TJ suddenly heard the Netizen cry. _Oh no,_ he thought, quickly reaching for his sweater to throw on over his new undergarment.

"I was just looking at it!" When TJ stepped out of the change room, there was Vanellope looking guilty, and the Netizen looking thoroughly ticked off as he held a glossy and quite expensive-looking pinstripe suit as far away from her as he could.

"Ralph has one just like it—" Vanellope began to protest, but the Netizen shook his head.

"Limited stock," he informed her rather snobbishly, smoothing out the suit's collar, which the girl racer had crinkled. "Not for the likes of _sticky fingers_ like yours. _"_

Vanellope looked crushed, and TJ felt his brotherly instinct being plucked. "She's my cousin," he spoke up. "Can you make an exception?"

The Netizen's eyes widened at once. "Your _cousin?!"_ His head spun to look at Vanellope, who nodded eagerly in confirmation, grinning from ear to ear.

" _And_ she's part of a dance troupe," TJ added. "One that's going to be performing with me. There are fifteen others in the same troupe, so if the suits fits, the rest might come here as well, to buy their costumes."

Immediately the Netizen started stammering. "M-My sincerest apologies! I had no idea!" He cordially offered Vanellope the suit, as a peace offering. "All yours, my dear!"

"Thank you, good sir!" Vanellope exclaimed, snatching the suit up and fleeing into the change room. Meanwhile, TJ decided to try pushing his luck a bit further.

"By the way," he began, "There was a coat there…" He pointed at the spot where the cool steampunk long coat had been. It didn't take long for the flustered Netizen to produce another one, from the back, in TJ's size exactly.

When Vanellope and TJ exited the site, they were both freshly clad in their new threads, plus sunglasses, and they strode fiercely and confidently together into the rest of the web. TJ especially was feeling like a champion, with his new corset on. And the long coat made him feel like he was on his way to stop a criminal, and break a few hearts on the way.

"YouTube, eat your heart out," he said with a smirk, popping his collar.

Vanellope snickered at that. "Hey, uhhh, thanks for helping me back there."

"No problem." At that moment, the two walked right past a news bulletin announcing that the game Detention Slip was down, though neither of them took much notice. They didn't even know what Detention Slip was, which was fortunate for them both.

"And thanks for the suit," Vanellope went on. "I'll pay you back."

TJ shrugged. "You don't have to."

"It was kinda pricey, though," she argued.

"Not to me." The corset, plus the long coat, the suit, and extra sunglasses, were mere pocket money to the young BuzzTube star.

Vanellope persisted still. "I have my racing winnings…"

"Keep them." TJ gestured to the whole of the internet. He and Ralph were everywhere, on giant screens, on billboards, on posters, all ads stirring up hype for the upcoming Roger Rabbit party, where they were the much-talked-about highlight. "Ralph and I are winning too."

* * *

Fashioned-cautious confidence did nothing to help either of them when they found themselves in the anti-virus district, standing in front of Dr. McAfee's blazing, forbidding firewall, unsure of how to proceed.

"So, uh, how do we get past it?" Vanellope asked.

"I…don't know," TJ said. "Unless you've got a fire extinguisher on you…"

"We're late! We're _soooooo_ late!" TJ and Vanellope both turned. Racing towards them was a yellow dog girl clutching a bundle of books, pulling Olaf the snowman behind her by the stick arm as he struggled to keep up. "And on the day of a big test, too!"

"Hi, Vanellope! Bye, Vanellope!" the snowman shouted, waving as they raced past her. "Nice suit!"

Vanellope raised a hand to wave back. She'd met Olaf many times, at OhMyDisney. "Winter coming early this year, snow cone?!" she called out to him.

"Yeah, and you can thank climate change for that!" Olaf called back to her as Isabelle pulled him right through the fire—without Frozen-esque consequences, both TJ and Vanellope noted—and up the stairs at that record-breaking speed only time-strapped students could achieve. In their classroom, Chuck, who was early, pulled his bag and books off the two seats he'd saved for his friends.

"You guys are in luck. Doc's late too," he told them.

"I have flash cards!" Isabelle exclaimed, releasing Olaf at last and digging hurriedly in her bag. "Let's power cram before she comes!"

"I think we just walk right through," TJ said outside. He stepped forward. Vanellope watched, then jumped on the spot as he cried out. _**"OW!"**_

The firewall had singed his foot. _"Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!"_ TJ stamped the pain out, and shook his leg furiously. When it receded, he gasped, "What the HELL?! I'm not a virus!"

"You're part Cybug," Vanellope felt obliged to point out. This was the first time she'd heard TJ swear. "Are you okay?"

"Physically or emotionally?" TJ joked, examining his foot. There were no burn marks on his shoe, and it didn't hurt anymore, thank goodness. But Dr. McAfee's site wasn't done messing with them just yet, because just then, out of the flames, slithered an old, familiar foe of Vanellope's.

"Scanning insecurity!" It aimed its eye right at her.

" _ **AHHHHH!"**_ Vanellope threw her hands over her head. "Don't clone me! I don't wanna break the internet! Well, maybe Reddit and 4chan, 'cause they're full of creepers, but not the rest!"

But instead of cloning her, Arthur merely recited, in his robotic tone, "Insecurities detected. Patient exhibits symptoms of extreme anxiety, restlessness, lack of empathy, jealousy disorder, and inability to feel fully satisfied. Causes include past long-term abuse and social isolation."

"Hey!" Vanellope snapped at the former virus. "Digging in a little deep there, aren't ya?!"

Arthur didn't respond. Instead, he turned his head and scanned TJ. "WAIT! Stop! NO!" the hybrid cried, ineffectively throwing his arms in front of his stomach, at once terrified that the snake-like creature would detect what the corset was meant to hide.

Luck was on his side, sort of. "Insecurities detected. Patient is experiencing gender and orientation confusion," Arthur droned. "As well as an internalized struggle with perfectionism. Causes include unconventional upbringing, troubled family history, and puberty."

"HEY! I'm—! Actually, no, I can't argue with any of that," TJ confessed, letting his arms fall. "Geez, what are you? The callout post generator?"

"My apologizes," spoke a woman's voice behind them. Vanellope and TJ both turned around again. There she was, in all her red glory. Dr. McAfee.

"I've reprogrammed him. He's no longer a virus. Now, he's my assistant, though I'm still working out some bugs. For example…" She stepped around them to get to him. "He's not supposed to expose people like that. He's only supposed to report to me. I'm working on that."

She smiled then at the two visitors. "How are you, TJ? I haven't seen you since your big performance. You and Ralph have certainly done well for yourselves since then."

TJ raised his hand to remove his sunglasses. "I'm great, doctor. I don't know if you've heard, but we've got _another_ big performance coming up." He then remembered Vanellope. "And by 'we' I don't mean the royal 'we.' That includes her too. Dr. McAfee, meet Vanellope. Vanellope, meet Dr. McAfee."

"A pleasure," Dr. McAfee said, offering Vanellope her hand to shake.

"Same," Vanellope replied, though not wholeheartedly. _Geez Louise, she's like a walking traffic light! Who's she trying to blind, with that glow?_ Good thing she was wearing sunglasses.

"Hey, doc, quick question. How come Arthur didn't pick up on my glitch?" She glitched for the psychiatrist then, to prove a point. "He did last time."

"He only detects mental health issues," Dr. McAfee explained, crouching down next to Arthur to stroke him like a cat. Arthur responded by making a relaxed, buzzing noise that almost sounded like purring. "Nothing physical. Nothing like a headache or a broken bone. I'd have to share him with WebMD if he did. Isn't that right, Arthur?"

The ex-virus curled its tail affectionally around the doctor's waist. Vanellope shuddered. She decided then and there that she did not like Dr. McAfee, at least not as much as TJ did. Anyone who would take that _thing_ on as a pet had to be missing a brick or two.

TJ didn't seem fazed, though. In fact, he actually reached out to pet Arthur as well, and Arthur responded by rubbing his head affectionately against the teen's hand. A semi-virus recognized another semi-virus.

"Dr. McAfee, is there any chance I could talk to you today?" TJ asked, as he kept petting Arthur. "If you're not too busy, that is? Also, how can I get past this, uh, fire? I'm part virus. It's hard to explain…"

"Of course," she said. "And to answer your second question, like this." Dr. McAfee clapped her hands, and at once the firewall protecting her site subsided in the middle, creating an opening for TJ to pass. "I trust that you're not a malicious virus, TJ. Come on in. You too, Vanellope, if you wish."

Vanellope certainly _did not_ wish. "I don't need therapy," she huffed, crossing her arms defiantly, like the child she really was.

"Well, I'm going in," TJ said. "I'll see you at home then, Vanellope. You know how to get back." He waved goodbye to her then, and stepped through the firewall, unharmed this time.

"It was lovely meeting you, Vanellope," Dr. McAfee told her. "I hope we see each other again soon."

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Vanellope demanded. Dr. McAfee only chuckled lightly, before stepping through the flames as well.

Vanellope found herself alone, wondering what it was TJ saw in that weird lady. Shaking her head, she headed off for OhMyDisney, where she fully intended to make her princess friends green with envy with her new suit, and see how the party preparations were coming along. _I wonder if they've finished up the dance hall yet…_

"Good morning, class," Dr. McAfee greeted her assembled students. Isabelle quickly stashed away her cards, and the rest of the class their notes being used for last-minute cramming.

"Good morning, doctor," they chorused back.

"Arthur will be supervising today's test," Dr. McAfee announced. On cue, her pet slithered into the room from behind her. "Arthur, keep your eye on everyone. Alert me if you catch anyone cheating."

Everyone, excluding Gord, cringed as Arthur fixed his unblinking eye on them all. Olaf gulped hard, and slowly leaned over to whisper to Isabelle, "I feel soooooooo scrutinized right now."

" **NO TALKING DURING THE TEST!"** Arthur commanded. Everyone jumped in their seats. "You may begin."

Everyone flipped over their papers and began to scribble furiously. Dr. McAfee was now free to give TJ her full attention. In her office, she made them both tea. "How do you take yours?" she asked him, pouring hot water from a red kettle into two red mugs.

"With milk, no sugar," TJ replied. "Thanks." He accepted the mug Dr. McAfee handed him.

He looked around her office as he took the first few sips. Everything was red. Red curtains, red desk, red desk _lamp,_ red plush armchair for the doctor, red reclining sofa for her patients to lament their worries and woes. Even the chair he was sitting on in front of her desk was red. He almost jokingly asked the doctor what her favourite color was, but decided to hold back.

On the wall, he saw her framed and laminated PhD certificate. He also saw a wedding photograph, which featured the one not-red thing in the room, a man wearing a green formal suit, standing next to her wearing a cherry-red gown and looking blissfully happy.

"Now…" the doctor breathed, settling down into her own armchair. She crossed one leg over the other. "What would you like to talk about?"

 _Tell her,_ a voice in TJ's head whispered pleadingly. _She won't tell anyone. She's legally and morally bound by patient confidentiality._ He opened his mouth and tried. He really did. But he only got as far as he did that time with Ralph on top of the kart factory.

"I'm…" What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he just say it? It was two words. Two stupid words. Two stupid, absolutely terrifying words, which cowered once again under his tongue. _I'm pregnant._ "I'm…"

He could have substituted for another two words. _Help me._ But asking for help was something the son of a notorious master manipulator was just not prepared to do. Defeatedly, he lowered his gaze.

"You don't have to tell me anything you're not ready to," Dr. McAfee told him gently. "I make it a point not to pressure my patients."

TJ gulped. He botched his chance. He would continue to carry his guilty secret alone, until he could no longer. His brain scrambled quickly for something to fall back on. "I'm curious about your book. About 'Rewriting the Program.' I have some questions."

 _Idiot,_ the voice hissed.

"Sure. What would you like to know?" Dr. McAfee asked. "The only thing I can't tell you is the real names of my patients."

"Of course. I understand."

"Or their current whereabouts," she added quickly. TJ frowned in disappointment. He'd wanted to ask her about the mother whose child was accidentally deleted in a botched game patch, and if there was any way he could help her out. Missus Panns, she was called in the book. Oh well. He certainly had many other questions that followed the rules…

And so they talked, and talked, and talked, while the red clock on the wall ticked, and time slipped away. Dr. McAfee was delightedly surprised by TJ's intelligence and insight, especially when it came to _Rewriting the Program._ He knew her book inside and out. Better than her own students did, to be perfectly honest. It was a shame that he wasn't really her student. There was so much she could teach him, if he was willing…

A hard knock on the door brought what turned out to be a two and a half hours long conversation to a screeching halt. "Doctor, we're all finished the test," Olaf's voice came in through the door. "Also, Arthur told Isabelle she has self-esteem problems and now she's crying—"

Dr. McAfee sighed. A psychiatrist's work never ended. "I'm sorry, TJ. I was enjoying this talk, but duty calls." She rose from her chair. When she opened the door, Olaf tried to sneak a peek at who it was she'd closeted herself up with for so long, but Dr. McAfee quickly ushered him along.

"Did you get the invite to the Roger Rabbit party I sent you?!" TJ heard Olaf ask her. "It took a little persuasion on my part, but warm hugs aren't the only thing I'm good at!"

"Yes, Olaf, thank you very much for doing that for me," TJ heard Dr. McAfee reply. "I appreciate it, though it's not in any way going to impact your grade." A family friendly curse from the snowman swiftly followed.

Not long later, Dr. McAfee walked TJ back to her firewall, where another hand-clap made a gap for him to exit through. But before the teen could leave, she had one last word of advice for him, based on her instinct that he was holding something back from her.

"Please, feel free to call me anytime, if there's anything you need, or if there's anything you'd like to share with me. You wouldn't be a burden." She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder then, and her warmth pulsed into him. "Needing someone else's support _never_ makes you a burden, TJ. Remember that."

TJ couldn't help but smile. "Will do, doctor," he said. "Will do."

* * *

Ralph teetered on his bare feet and bounced on the spot anxiously, excitedly, as he stood in the Wifi router, facing the tunnel, awaiting TJ's return with childlike eagerness, as if his show partner had been away for a month, not a single day.

The light above the tunnel flashed, indicating that someone was heading in and was due to land any second. Ralph's heart fluttered wildly in his chest. TJ was back! He'd come _back!_

The wrecker rushed forward, arms extended. "KID—!"

" _ **RALPH!"**_ Vanellope, literally bursting from her bubble, leapt onto Ralph's chest. "My favourite welcoming committee!"

Ralph's arms fell limp at his sides in confusion. "Vanellope?"

"The one and only!" she exclaimed, pressing herself against him and nuzzling her face into his shirt.

Ralph raised a hand to give Vanellope a friendly though rather awkward pat on the back. "Uhhhh, good to see ya, squirt. You went to the internet today?"

"No, I went to Argentina—of _COURSE_ I went to the internet, you big numbskull!" She reached up and knocked on his head with her little fist.

Ralph spoke up. "Where's, um, where's TJ—?"

"Hanging out with that bonkers doctor lady," Vanellope replied. She jumped down from his chest and did a little spin for him. "Do you like my new suit? What do you think?" He hadn't even remarked on it yet.

"HE'S **WHAT?!"** Inside, Ralph's senses were screeching, his panic skyrocketing. _Red alert! Red alert!_ "He's supposed to come home! He promised!"

Vanellope rolled her eyes. "Sheesh, Ralph, cool yer hot buns. He's coming back. He said so."

"No, he's not!" Ralph wailed in anguished despair. "He's left me! He's left me for Dr. McAfee! I knew this would happen! I never should have let him go!"

"Ralph, come on…" Vanellope pleaded, but she might as well have been a fly on the wall, for all the attention Ralph paid to her. He was pacing the router now, holding his head in his hands.

"Why does this keep happening to me?!" he cried out. Vanellope jumped when he pounded the wall of the router with his fist, making the whole box-like room shake. "What's wrong with me?! Why doesn't anybody ever want to stay—?!"

"Hey, guys." TJ's timely appearance in the tunnel brought Ralph's outburst to a screeching halt. The wrecker frozen mid-rant, and stared, stunned and mortified, at the object of his torment.

"Ralph?" TJ began, his travel bubble dissolving as he stepped down. "Are you okay? You look..." The hybrid chose his adjective carefully. "Unsettled."

"Unsettled?! Who's unsettled?! I'm as settled as the pilgrims!" the still-very-jittery bad buy cried defensively. "I live and breathe 'settled!' Ah ha ha!"

"But you're all shaky," TJ argued. "And you're sweating. A lot."

"Well, it's not like there's an AC in here!" Ralph argued back, tugging desperately at his shirt collar, to let out the steam. He frantically fanned himself with his other hand, to make clear his point.

"Yeah, there is," Vanellope butted in. "Aggressively Clingy—"

" _ANYWHOOOOO—!"_ Ralph sang, shooting a warning look Vanellope's way. He put his hand around TJ and began to lead him towards the cord that would take them back to Game Central Station. Away from the internet, and all its temptations. "Tell me everything you did today, buddy. Don't spare any details."

"Oh, hey, don't mind me," Vanellope spat, reluctantly following them. She noted how Ralph did not retract his hand, but rather kept it cupped around TJ's personal bubble as if to stop the teen from drifting away as they brought their heads close together to chit-chat.

"…and then he said my wings were like 'lush grass in a meadow.'" "Pffffft! That's a new one!" "It's better than that subscriber who called me an absinthe fairy…." "Or when Brandy Rivers called you a grey-skinned Smurf." "Oh yeah!"

Then TJ threw his head over his shoulder to look at Vanellope. "At least you were around to help me pick out a new _coat._ Right, Vanellope?"

Vanellope said nothing. TJ made a swirling "Come on, work with me" motion with his hand, and she rolled her eyes yet again.

"Yup. A new coat. That's exactly what you bought, alright. That's all you bought." _Should have bought some liar's dice to go with it._

As they floated down the wire, with TJ in front, Ralph in the middle, and Vanellope trailing in the rear, TJ called back over his shoulder. "Oh, Ralph, by the way! Guess what?! Dr. McAfee's gonna be at the Roger Rabbit party! You should ask her to be your date!"

"Ha!" Vanellope cried out, unable to resist having a go at her big, beloved doofus. "That's a great idea! She'll having a field day picking _your_ brain to bits, Stinko!"

"Hard pass," Ralph said. His initial interest in the, admittedly, intriguing web-psychiatrist had crashed and burned the moment he'd begun to suspect that she was trying to steal TJ away from him. _Get your own best friend, doc,_ he thought now, with vehemence. _TJ is MINE!_

"Besides," he said aloud now. "Didn't you say she was married?"

"Yeah, but they're separated," TJ pointed out.

"That means 'not together,'" Vanellope added with gleeful sarcasm. "Just in case ya didn't know."

"I know what it means," Ralph snapped. "But separated is not divorced. I may be a wrecker, but I'm not a _home_ wrecker. Married women are off-limits, and as far as I'm concerned, Dr. McAfee is married."

Vanellope _tsk-tsked._ "So old-fashioned. You'll never get a girlfriend with that attitude, Ralph!"

Game Central Station was packed when they arrived. Ralph followed TJ through the crowd like a puppy on it's owner's heels, while Vanellope followed Ralph, like a puppy left behind. TJ, distracted and unaware of the fact that he was leading what was essentially a clinginess conga line, soon had his attention monopolized by an excited group of kid characters that suddenly swarmed and surrounded him.

"TJ! You're back! _"_

"Hi TJ! Where were you all day?!"

"Where'd you get the coat?! Can I try it on?!"

"I'm learning some of your songs on the piano!"

"I'm learning them on the guitar!"

"I'm learning the drums! Do you wanna come over and see my new drum set?!"

"That's great, guys! That's fantastic!" TJ's hands reached out and ruffled many a head of hair. "I'm so proud of you! Soon we'll have the most musical arcade in the world!"

"Come to Tappers and we'll show you!" one of the hybrid's young admirers begged, seizing one of his hands and jumping up and down. The others soon took up the rallying cry.

" _YES!_ Come to Tappers with us!"

"Please, pleeeeeeease come to Tappers, TJ!"

"I'll play for you!"

"I'll play better!"

"We can play musical chairs—!"

"And Charades!"

"I'd love to, guys, but I can't," TJ told them. "I promised I'd go home for dinner."

" _AWWWWWWW!"_ the kids groaned. One of them even started crying into their hands.

"Come on, guys," TJ pleaded with them gently. "Ralph's not busy tonight. You can play with him." He turned then to his friend. "Right, Ralph?"

Ralph suddenly looked like he very much wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else, mud puddle included. "Uhhhhhhhhhhh…"

"But Ralph's all sad and junk when you're not around!" said the young, male Angel Kid. His sister nodded in agreement, while Ralph's face turned redder than a stolen Pac-Man cherry. "We _saw_ him, moping around the station for, like, two hours—! _MMMMMMM!"_

Ralph's thumb smothered the little angel's tattle-tale mouth before it could do any further damage. "So who's up for Charades?!" he cried, with a very, _very_ forced chuckle.

"Yo, what's up with Punch Buggy, No Punch Backs?" Vanellope heard Bart Simpson whisper to his sister.

"Like many great musical geniuses before him, he's experiencing the excruciating pangs of love-sickness for his muse and kindred spirit," Lisa whispered back. "As Ludwig Von Beethoven had his Immortal Beloved, or Elton John his Bernie Taupin, Wreck-It Ralph has his TJ."

Bart whistled under his breath in response. Vanellope, cheeks tingling hotly, was about to turn around and say something—she didn't know what, but she had to say _something_ —Taffyta appeared before her, looking peeved, as if someone had switched her shampoo with a bottle of icing, a feat which Vanellope was guilty of, though it was only once. Well, technically, twice.

"You're late for rehearsal!" the president of Sugar Rush snapped, arms crossed impatiently. "We've all been waiting for you! You can play party games with Ralph or stalk TJ some other time! Come on!"

She seized Vanellope by the arm, while the gang of young musicians-in-training seized Ralph's fingers. Both wrecker and racer were dragged off unwillingly and in opposite directions, away from TJ, who waved goodbye good-naturedly to them both as he flew off into the Hero's Duty tunnel.

Once safely in the train, the winged teen collapsed onto a seat, and heaved a great sigh of relief. _What a day._

* * *

Meal preparation was well under way in Hero's Duty. The marines were aproned and busy at their duties in the sweltering kitchen, made noisy by the clanking of utensils and the radio that blazed their favourite classic rock tunes. Yet they all stopped what they were doing and turned when TJ flung open the door and swept in.

"I'm home _,"_ the hybrid announced, hanging up his new coat on the wall and reaching for a clean apron. "What's for dinner?" he asked his uncles.

"Spaghetti and meatballs," Private Kohut said. He looked at the others. "TJ, we need to talk to you."

TJ froze. _Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. They know._ His eyes shifted at the door, and his mind quickly calculated how fast he could make an escape.

"You're not in trouble," Private Kohut assured him, sensing the teen's anxiety. "This _is_ important, though, so can you please sit down?"

TJ gulped. Slowly, he sank down in the chair. Private Markowski, smiling almost apologetically, slid a mug of hot tea towards him, which TJ didn't touch.

Private Kohut cleared his throat. "TJ…" he began. "You know we all love you, and you know we only want what's best for you, right?"

"Y-Yeah?"

Private Kohut looked at the others for confirmation. "We've all been talking, and…well, we're thinking that, after this big Disney party is done, you and Ralph should…spend a little less time together."

TJ blinked. "Spend a little less ti—?" Understanding clicked in his head.

"Is this about those stupid rumours?!" he demanded. "It's not true! Guys, this is Ralph we're talking about! _Ralph!_ He would never—!"

"Kiddo, we know it's not true," Private Swift spoke up. "We trust Ralph. He's a good man, and we know how much he means to you. It's other people we don't trust." He reached out to touch TJ's hand. "We don't want any creeps out there getting the wrong idea about you. That you're—"

"Free game?" TJ finished for him, furiously yanking his hand away. "Oh, yeah, like I'm free! My rate's five hundred dollars a night!" he spat sarcastically. "I'm not a cheap date!"

"Don't even joke about that!" Private Swift snapped at him. "You're a kid! A child! You need to put your safety first!"

"This is ridiculous," TJ said. "You guys are really gonna sit there and tell me I should ditch my show partner, because some gross gossips out there don't have a life?!"

"We're just saying that a little more breathing room between you and Ralph wouldn't be such a bad thing," Private Kohut explained. "The friendship doesn't have to end entirely, but it would give you more space to branch out."

"And find a nice boy your own age to hang out with," Uncle Markowski put in. "Or girl!" he added quickly. "Whatever you're interested in!" He chuckled forcefully, eyes darting back and forth.

"No one _wanted_ to hang out with me! Not before I became rich and famous and _pretty!_ " TJ spat. "Ralph was my first friend! My _only_ friend! I can't throw him off just like that! I need him in my life too!"

He then pointed out the kitchen window. At the battlefield, the tower, and the Cybug-frying beacon. "I'm not one of those _things_ you guys gun down every day! I'm a person! I have feelings! I have _rights!"_

"TJ, our minds are made up," Private Kohut stated firmly. "After the Roger Rabbit party, you and Ralph are spending some time apart, and you're going to make some more friends. End of discussion."

"It's not fair!" TJ shouted, slamming his palms down on the table. "What's wrong with you people?! What's wrong with this arcade?! Why is everyone like this?!"

He zoomed off to his room so fast that his chair toppled over behind him. His uncles looked at each other, sighed, and shook their heads in dismay.

"I told you guys he'd get all squirrely."

"I think we should have a talk with Ralph too. Lay down the law a bit."

"Hoo boy. That's gonna go well…"

TJ slammed his bedroom door behind him and threw himself on his bed, burying his face in his pillow. _I hate them. I hate everything. I hate my life._ He began to cry softly, remembering too late that he was still wearing his contacts. His eyeballs soon felt like Super Mario's desert level, dry as sand, and he had to go to his bathroom to pop the lenses out. _They're not going to let me keep my baby. They won't even let me have Ralph. What am I going to do?_

 _Maybe I can run away,_ TJ thought, as he tilted his head back to squeeze in eyedrops. _I could go live on the internet. Start a new life. Raise my baby on my own. Dr. McAfee would help me get set up._ The very thought of it made his chest hurt. _I would have to leave Ralph._

When TJ's uncles called for him to come for dinner, he ignored them, preferring to cocoon himself under his bed covers instead. He had no appetite, for food or for company. He wanted to go to sleep for a long time and wake up to a world where two best buddies were left alone in peace. Some time passed by, and then there was a timid knock on the door.

"It's me," his Uncle Markowski's voice drifted through. "Can I come in?"

TJ hesitated. Out of all his marine uncles, Private Markowski was his favourite. "It's open," he muttered, still morose and immobile beneath his blanket. The door creaked open, and the private tentatively stepped in.

"Do you want to come eat with us?" he asked. "You barely eat anymore."

"I'm not hungry." At that, the worried marine dared to cross the bedroom to TJ's bed and took a seat at the end of it.

"Listen," Markowski began, shuffling awkwardly on that corner of hard mattress. "Don't think I believe even for a second that there's anything fishy going on between you and Ralph. That Surge Protector is just a big busybody—"

TJ's head shot up from under the covers to look at his uncle. "The Surge Protector?! _He_ snitched?!"

That snotty, pencil-pushing, glorified light bulb! In his head, TJ was already slipping Bart Simpson twenty dollars to set off a stink bomb in the station, or worse. Hell, Bart would do it for free. All TJ had to do was ask.

"He came to us," Markowski confessed. "He said he saw you kiss Ralph. Did you?"

"On the cheek!" TJ protested. "When I was saying goodbye to him! They do stuff like that in Europe!"

"We're not in Europe," Markowski said. "Not by a longshot. People here aren't as modern and _bohemian_ as a pair of A-list artists like you and Ralph," he joked lightly, hoping to get a smile out of his almost-nephew. TJ only frowned, and reached for his glasses on his bedside table.

Markowski sighed. "I know you don't like this. Following orders is hard. I know. Day after day, game after game, I have to charge headfirst into that…horrible, _horrible_ swarm." The space cadet shuddered. "But sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. Ralph will understand."

"No, he won't," TJ protested. "I don't think you guys really get it. Ralph's lonely. He needs me. He needs _someone."_

"But isn't that other little friend of his home again?" Markowski asked.

TJ shrugged. "Not for long. She'll leave again when she feels like it." Vanellope lived entirely by her whims. Everyone knew that. TJ just accepted it. You couldn't stop a runaway train. You could only stand by and wait for it to crash.

"Well, why doesn't Ralph try dating?" Markowski suggested. "I'm sure there must be people interested! As the saying goes, 'Who doesn't love a bad guy?'" He nudged TJ at that.

"Ralph's not the dating type," TJ said. He and Vanellope liked to tease him about finding a girlfriend, but the truth was, Ralph was what he liked to call "a lone brick." Not part of any standing structure.

Though. at that moment, over at Tappers, he was at least participating, if only half-heartedly, in what had become a heated game of Charades that included not only the kids, but _all_ the patrons who'd gone there that night for a root beer.

"Don't Cry for Me, Argentina!"

"Tears in Heaven!"

"Teardrops on My Guitar!"

Ralph pointed at Bowser Junior, who'd cried out that last guess, and made a sign that he was warm. He acted out the clues again. He mimed playing a guitar, and then pretended to cry, making "waaa, waaa, waaa" motions with his closed fists.

It was Bowser Senior whose face suddenly lit up. _"While My Guitar Gently Weeps!"_ the Koopa King roared, jumping off his barstool.

"You got it, Fireball," Ralph said, pointing at him. All the members of Bowser's team cheered, and Junior jumped into his Dad's arms. Ralph's gut clenched as he watched Bowser spin him around.

Zangief turned to the scoreboard. "So that is another point for Team Green…" He drew a line with chalk.

 _TJ would have gotten it right away,_ Ralph thought, as he took a seat amongst the members of his team, Team Red. Bowser was now plunging his claw into a bowl of paper scraps, to pick what he was going to act out.

"Come on, Dad, you've got this!" Junior cried out. Ralph wondered to himself if Bowser Junior ever kissed his Dad, or vice versa. Did he dare ask? _Hey, Bowser, old buddy, quick question. Asking for a friend…_

Bowser selected a paper and unfolded it, raising his bushy fire-red eyebrows at he read it. "Pfffft. Easy." The Koopa King stretched, and then he began. He started with swishing his claws about like an orchestra conductor, and then holding up four fingers. It was another song, and it had four words.

 _It's not wrong that I want to kiss him back, is it_? Ralph was thinking to himself. _It's just fatherly instinct, right?_ Meanwhile, Bowser was pretending to preen himself like a feline, miming licking his hand with curled claws.

"Groom! Grooming!"

"Kitten!"

"Cat!"

"Is it something from the musical 'Cats?!'"

Bowser shook his head, and signalled that "Cats" was just the first word. He then folded his arms and began moving them back and forth, back and forth, as if rocking a baby to sleep…

"Baby!"

"Rock-a-bye baby!"

"Lullaby!"

"It's 'Cat's in the Cradle,'" Ralph thought wearily. He really wasn't feeling that into the game. He decided to let someone else figure it out.

No one else was getting it, though, so Bowser tried a different approach. He put out his claw and began pretending to push something back and forth, back and forth, very, _very_ gently.

"Baby's crib!" someone shouted. Bowser signalled that they were warm.

"Baby's bed!"

"Baby's cradle!"

" _ **CAT'S IN THE CRADLE!"**_ Lisa Simpson shrieked excitedly, leaping to her feet. "It's 'Cat's in the Cradle!' by Harry Chapin!"

 _Finally,_ thought Ralph.

"Pointy-haired kid for the win!" Bowser cried. Now it was Team Red's turn to cheer, and Lisa and Bart jumped up and chest bumped.

"I gotta take a leak," Ralph announced to no one in particular, rising from his chair. He headed into the corridor where, only days earlier, who'd come _this close_ to sending Gene back to his makers.

Glancing behind him, to make sure he wasn't followed, he quickly whipped out his phone and dialed TJ's number. He didn't know what he was going to say to him, but at that moment, he just really wanted to hear his voice…

Back in Hero's Duty, TJ was out of bed, and pacing his bedroom as he ranted to his uncle. "I don't know _where_ people get these ideas about Ralph and me! The internet's way worse! _Everyone's_ a pervert there! You know a subscriber once called Ralph 'a big, beefy snack?'"

Markowski gagged.

"I know, right?!" TJ exclaimed. "Welcome to our world! Everyone! Is! _GROSS!"_ Beside him, his phone vibrated on his desk, and TJ saw Ralph's trademark, raging icon. "I should probably answer that…"

"Don't," Markowski insisted. "He'll keep you on the phone for hours, and you need to eat." He smiled then, reaching out to take TJ by the shoulders. "If you come to dinner, maybe we can all talk this over like grownups…"

TJ looked guiltily at his phone. "But he'll be upset…"

"He's a big boy. He'll be fine. Come on, mister!" At that, Markowski began gently but firmly ushering TJ out of the room. "Swift made raspberry cheesecake for dessert!" Now it was TJ's turn to gag.

Back at Tappers, Ralph's face fell as his phone remained unanswered. _He's mad at me. I was too clingy today. I blew it._ The wrecker was so downtrodden that he didn't even notice Nicelander Lucy approaching him.

"Oh _Raaaaaaaaalph!"_ she sang-song, bearing two gin and tonics, in which floated a generous helping of maraschino cherries. "Look what I got!"

"Huh? Oh, hey Lucy," Ralph greeted her. "Is it Happy Hour already?"

"You bet your ass it is!" Lucy chirped cheerfully, handing Ralph a glass. Clearly, she'd already started. She looked a tad tipsy. More than a tad, in fact. "So drink up and look happy, mister! The night's young!"

"Well, I feel a million years old," Ralph grumbled.

"Awww, don't be like that," Lucy entreated, swaying slightly on her fashionable heels. "Don't be an old, grumpy dick. That's _Gene's_ job…"

Back in Fix-It Felix Jr., the Niceland building had divided themselves into two teams as well, though not for Charades. It was Team Ralph versus Team Gene, with Felix captaining the helm of Team Ralph and making a point of refusing to socialize with the mustachioed mayor until he apologized to Ralph for his unfair accusations.

 _I'll die first,_ Gene was reported to have said. _I can help with that,_ had been Ralph's response, when the report had reached him.

Back at the bar, the Charades players had started struck up the chorus of the last round's clue. _"And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon! Little boy blue and the man in the moon! When you're coming home, Dad, I don't know when, but we'll get together theeeeeeen! I know we'll have a good time theeeeeeen!"_ Ralph peeked back at the crowd, and saw Bowser Junior sitting on his Dad's shoulder as both father and son sang along.

Ralph suddenly _really_ wanted the gin and tonic. "Fine, I'll bite. Cheers," he said, clinking his glass against Lucy's, who grinned and raised her own in a toast, spilling a few drops on Tapper's floor in the process. Ralph threw his hand back and drank deeply, smacking his lips afterwards at the familiar and pleasant taste of cherries and alcohol together.

 _I'm gonna be as big a drunk as Gene before the big party,_ he thought with mild, self-deprecating humour, as he swirled what was left in his glass, which was now mostly red fruit and ice. _Maybe I SHOULD ask Dr. McAfee to be my date._ The drink, which Sour Bill had made strong, rushed straight to his head, and the little cherries bounced around in his glass like a screensaver. _Mod, I have so many problems…_

* * *

 **End of Chapter**

* * *

Please leave reviews! They give me power. Thanks for reading.


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